Tents at Tilandi Top on the Brahmatal trek, pitched above the clouds

Tilandi Top, Brahmatal trek, Uttarakhand · 26 December 2020

A cluster of bright tents on a dry brown ridge, and below them the valleys are filled with cloud. This is Tilandi Top — the first campsite on the Brahmatal trek. It’s high enough to look down at the clouds and the ridges beyond them.

Here, late December usually means snow. In 2020, it did not arrive — the ridge was bare. But the cold came anyway: single digits by day, below zero at night.

The larger tent near the center is the kitchen, where the crew heats water and cooks between the evening arrival and the next morning’s climb.

Photograph: Hisalu