Roll on: Dhruv Gautam

I set my heart on achieving such a feat when I read about an Indian Air Force person who had made the same trip from Leh to Khardung La (18,380 ft) in Ladakh on a motorcycle. That was in February this year. Since I have been skating for the past 13 years, and I do competitive speed skating and also play roller hockey and have won medals in the nationals, I thought of covering the uphill distance of 39.5 km from Leh bazaar to this high pass on roller skates. So on June 1 this year, at the age of 15, I became the youngest person to achieve this feat.

My brother, Vijayant Tyagi, nine years older than me and a sub-lieutenant in the Indian Navy, also roller skates and is a national medal winner. He completed the feat with me and set a time record by covering the distance in seven hours and 25 minutes. My record is in the age category, not time. I covered the distance in nine hours. Our names have been included in the latest edition of the Limca Book of Records, due to be published shortly.

Ahead of D-Day, we spent 10 days in Leh to acclimatise ourselves to the altitude, which is over 11,300 ft in the town. We travelled from Delhi to Leh by air and I spent the first three days resting. Rest is advisable as that helps the body to acclimatise faster to the sudden increase in altitude. We put up in the 81 RCC campus. I maintained a normal diet though I didn’t have much of an appetite. I began training by going for short walks of 200-300 m under the supervision of the military doctors there. Then I increased the walks to one kilometre with uphill walks for about 150 m thrown in.

One day, we went up to a military post en route to Khardung La and spent a night there. Two days before the big day, I skated for 10-15 km along the Leh-Kargil highway. That gave me an idea of what lay ahead.

On June 1, we set out at 5.10 am. We chose an early hour because the wind speed was high and it would pick up during the day. Our aim was to reach Khardung La by noon. It was drizzling. The temperature was -7°C. My brother, being an armed forces man, was in military uniform.

I wore two track pants and two vests over my thermals. I had two jackets with the outer one being waterproof. I wore my skating helmet over a monkey cap, wore a pair of woollen gloves and socks. We also had medical back-up. We were accompanied by a vehicle carrying bottled oxygen and a military doctor, along with a Navy man and an Army man.

In the beginning, we skated slowly because the gradient was quite steep. We covered the first four to five kilometres in this way.

I had a headache and nausea but I just carried on. It became worse when we reached the military post at South Pullu (15,300 ft). It was 7.15 am and it had started snowing. Visibility became very poor. The military convoy going to Siachen, consisting of about 250 trucks, waited two-and-a-half hours for us. Traffic is one way there and we had requested the traffic control at South Pullu to delay the convoy to help us roll on.

South Pullu to Khardung La was a distance of 14 km and a climb of about 3,000 ft. It was the toughest section. My average speed was about 1 m in 15 minutes. By the time we reached Nubra Gate (about two kilometres before the pass), visibility was less than 15 m. We were forced to wait for 25 minutes. Then it improved and we resumed skating.

Finally, I reached Khardung La. It was still very cold. On the pass the temperature was -8°C. I was extremely tired and thirsty. We drank litchi juice. The taste of success made it even more delicious and refreshing.