Climbing Girnar: 10,000 Steps to the Summit

The Girnar climb starts in the dark, and everyone tells you this like it is a warning. It is really just good advice. I set out from the base near Junagadh at 4am with a head torch, a bottle of water and roughly zero idea of what nearly ten thousand steps would do to my legs.

By the first hundred steps I was warm. By the first thousand I had stopped talking. The people around me, pilgrims mostly, moved at a steady rhythm that I did not have yet, and a chai stall glowed orange in the black like a small promise.

What you are actually climbing

Girnar is an old volcanic massif rising out of the plains of Saurashtra, and it is sacred to both Jains and Hindus, which is why the stairway exists at all. The steps are real stone, laid over centuries, and the count usually given is around ten thousand, though nobody I met agreed on the exact number and by step seven thousand you stop caring.

The mountain is a series of summits, not one. The first big plateau holds a cluster of Jain temples, marble and quiet, dating back to the twelfth century. Above that the path drops into a saddle and then climbs again to Ambaji, and then again, cruelly, to Gorakhnath, the highest point in Gujarat. Every time you think you are done, another ridge appears.

The stone stairway up Girnar, cut into the hillside above Junagadh.

The hardest, best stretch

The section that broke me was the descent into the saddle before the final climb. You have already done the hard part, your thighs are shot, and now the path insists on going down so it can go back up. I sat on a step, ate a slightly crushed banana, and watched a man twice my age stroll past carrying nothing but a walking stick and total calm.

Everyone slows down eventually; the mountain simply decides when

That is the honest truth of Girnar. Fitness helps, but pace helps more. The pilgrims who passed me were not stronger, they were just patient, breaking the climb into small unhurried pieces. I started copying them, ten steps then a breath, and the mountain stopped feeling like a fight.

Sunrise from the top

I reached Ambaji as the sky went from grey to a thin gold, and the whole plain of Saurashtra opened out below, still half-asleep under a lid of mist. Temple bells were going somewhere above me. It is the kind of view you cannot photograph properly, though everyone tries, and I did too. If your knees allow, push on to Gorakhnath for the true summit, but even Ambaji at dawn is worth every burning step.

If you go

• Start between 4am and 5am from Girnar Taleti, the base near Junagadh, to summit around sunrise and beat the heat.
• There is now a ropeway to the first temple plateau if the full stairway is too much; the upper summits still need your legs.
• Carry at least two litres of water, though chai and lemon-soda stalls line much of the route.
• Wear broken-in shoes with grip; the worn stone is slippery going down more than up.
• Give yourself the whole morning, and do not plan anything strenuous for the day after.

I limped for two days after Girnar and I would do it again tomorrow. There is a particular clarity that comes from earning a view one aching step at a time, something a car and a viewpoint can never quite give you. If you only do one climb in Gujarat, make it this one, and go slow enough to enjoy how hard it is.