Pilgrims make their way to Sheshnag on the Amarnath Yatra. (Photo: Praveen Khanna)
THE RAINS have been unrelenting. And every morning, a five-man road-opening party from the BSF has been conducting threat assessment operations from Chandanwari to Sheshnag. In between the two base camps, is the most difficult part of the Amarnath Yatra: Pissu top mountain, a punishing 3-km trek involving a steep ascent 11,000 ft above sea level over narrow tracks covered in mud.
The BSF party, the Mountain Rescue Team (MRT) and the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) warn the Nunwan base camp that the “track is dangerous” due to “continuous rainfall”. The Sheshnag base camp director, too, requests his counterpart to not send anyone through. But despite the red flags, officials at Nunwan show the green light.
“The pilgrims kept insisting that we allow them to leave Pahalgam. Many of them had started to become agitated,” says Surender Mohan, the director of Nunwan base camp.
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