“The Struggle is worth every moment if both the journey and the destination remains within you forever”
~ Suraj
The struggle was perhaps the quote of that particular day. I penned it down in my mind, once the trek was done and we were revisiting our nostalgia at the concrete journey in the cities. The dramatic turnaround and the turn of events, backed up with fun and excitement were the key ingredients of this recipe. It wasn’t menacing till a point, where we took an important call in our journey.
I woke up when the clock read 6.20am on my mobile phone. Quite frankly, I struggled the whole night, turning both sides and sleeping in a similar posture inside a sleeping bag. It didn’t feel shivering cold the morning, still, when you wake up at such a location, you are set to struggle for good. Arkya, on the other hand, was still asleep, and I took his GoPro and decided to capture the early morning shot while exiting from the tent. I took his camera, wore my boots, and unzipped the camp. I struggled to hold the camera with one hand and unzip two layers of tents to exit and witness a slow slumber in the skies. It felt that the sun is struggling to shine on us and the Dhauladhars are shielding it.
The surface was wet with intense dew. In some time, people came out from their camps as well. I was welcomed by Vikas, who was shivering in cold, and had a brief chat.
On the other side, Neha woke up and came out from her tent, and narrated her experience of the previous night. Soon, the boys from Gurgaon came out from their tents and shared their comical experience of the tent pole getting dislocated xD…. In all, it looked that everybody had a story to share in just one night of sleeping inside their tent and sleeping bags.
While Arkya was in super-nap mode, we all were welcomed by Sonam, who came with a flask filled with Tea and distributed it to all of us.
After having yet another tasty cup of Mountain Tea, Neha, Naman, Rishab, and I decided it climbing a small path, ahead of our camps to check the views surrounding us.
It was simply majestic! Although my phone managed some decent clicks, Neha’s iPhone did magic in one simple word J She captured breathtaking shots of the surroundings and to her credit, the sun finally came out to greet us and in the most photogenic way possible.
We came down and got a word from Sonam on our breakfast getting prepared. We were set to be served with Bhatura and Sabji.
Arkya woke up and looked intensely tired. He got his cup of tea from Sonam, who was charged up as always.
In the meantime, it was a photo-clicking session! With the sun out and the lights perfect, I became Neha’s “Personal Photographer” for a while xD …… But yes 😀 She returned the favor and clicked some brilliant shots as well J
Soon, Arkya joined us in the photo-clicking session and became the third spoke in the wheel. Actually, to put it straight, we captured pictures of each other in turns and at different angles 😀
When it was done, Sonam called us for the breakfast. The Bhatura Sabji was piping hot and felt like a refreshing change. Else, we even predicted to have Maggie sometime back, until when we came to know about this.
Once the breakfast was done, it was 8.45am, and 3 out of 4 guides announced for pack up and return to Mcleodganj with other camp-mates. While me, Arkya, and our guide Sonam were the only 3 to leave the other way, towards Laka.
We had a briefing with Sonam, who explained about the day and what are the things, we would be doing later onwards.
Slowly, people started moving out of their tents and took pictures with their camping flags, which the guides carry. We too had our moment and clicked the special moment shortly.
We felt bad about our teammates returning back so soon. It was barely one day; we introduced ourselves to each other. Quite honestly, trekking is a great way to meet new people and share a similar experience of summiting the top. Harshit, Gaurav, Rishab, and Naman were keeping the vibes of the experience fun all the way while we were ascending the previous day. They were keeping the tempo up and were always a good sport in the trek.
Neha on the other hand became close to us. We remember naming her as “Struggler Neha”, all thanks to her performance the previous day. Nevertheless, it was a part and I am quite sure, she wouldn’t forget her first trekking experience. Right from doing her part in Vlogging and capturing some amazing pictures, she seemed to enjoy the trek thoroughly. In all, a big thanks to Neha for being such a good trekking companion and for being wise to share Chocolate bars xD
We waved everyone goodbye and the campsite became empty within minutes, with 4 people from the campsite and we 3 the only people around the vicinity. Strange, how things dry up from bustling about an hour back to a quaint campsite.
Day-2: Triund to Laka (Himalayan Quest Campsite)
As per our discussion and briefing, it was rather an easy day-worth trek. It would take us about 2 hours and our next campsite was barely 3km from the current point. We felt it would be a cakewalk!
Only to Underestimate!
Sonam instructed us to keep some of our clothes at this camp and carry only the necessary items. We unloaded quite a few items at Triund and carried minimal items. While doing so, I carried one Trekking Pant (the one I was wearing), 2 t-shirts, 1-upper thermal, 2 pairs of socks (one cotton and one woolen), 1 pair of undergarments, a beany cap, a heavy jacket, a shawl among the clothing ones.
This was a big blunder on my part to not have carried the other Trekking Pant. How costly did it prove?
We started at 9.50 am from Triund. All geared up and ready to move to our next base camp. Immediately, we climbed a steep rocky inclined path. Just ahead of us, there was a guest house of the Forest Department.
The bright and sunny day was so perfect for photography. The whole area looked breathtaking, with clouds at our levels and the perfect level of sunshine over us. Who would have thought that in another 40 minutes, everything was about to change?
Moving up the ridge, we crossed the main Shiva Temple of Triund. This was on the route towards Laka and the roads became incredibly steep and rocky. This was the point, where we saw the last base camp from the Triund side and crossed it in a while. Slowly though, it felt the temperatures dip. It felt as if it’s going to rain.
Quickly, we wrapped the rain cover of our bags and covered it first. We wore the Ponchos that we purchased before we began the expedition. I felt extremely uneasy, wearing a polythene bag over and just for the sake of protecting ourselves. In a short while, we saw two people descending from the Laka side.
Arkya began his vlogging a long back and tried his best in covering all these points. While I managed to click shots on the route, we crossed a frame of wooden tree bark and entered the zone of serious climbing. We saw several people coming down towards Triund around this point. The paths became narrow and incredibly steep with sharp rocks. Sonam pointed us the Triund basecamp from a point. It looked incredibly far.
We completed close to an hour on the trek and we were near the halfway point, where large droplets of water started its onslaught. This culminated in heavy rainfall. The worst part of this particular trail is there are no points to hide. There was no shade or large trees to guard our heads. It became incredibly violent and winds were flowing from all directions and the droplets seemed to hurt us hard.
The ponchos stood no chance. The windblast grew extremely severe and the rain waters were getting colder. All three of us were drenched immensely in the rain and water went inside our shoes. We couldn’t see anything ahead of us for a short while and the roads were covered with dense clouds.
The lightning was dramatic! Since there was a cloud on our level as well as above us, the echo was surreal. It felt we cruised on a trail of lightning. On the route, we crossed Taranga Wali Mata Mandir; an important checkpoint on this reasonably steep trail. The rain seemed to slow down, but still had enough force to drench you for good. We started to shiver as our feet started getting cold. There was no point we could stop or change our clothes. It felt so anticlimactic after rather a promising and sunny daylight. All this, backed with our decision to keep some of our clothes on the Triund camp was the cherry at the top of the cake of blunders and misfortunes.
The ridge became steeper and finally, the rains started to slow down for about 5 minutes. Our fingers were getting numb and ultimate stress backing; it was just about time we luckily ran on to Snowline Café, the first café in the Laka region for temporary shelter.
We ran inside and took a large breath and had almost half a bottle of water time immediately. We bought some chocolates and had to calm ourselves and felt a tad better. At this point, Sonam pointed outside the café, there were droplets of hailstones. All this while, we were ripped in immense Hail storm-backed rain. We were over 10k feet above sea level and have climbed close to 1000ft from Triund in under 3km distance.
Our base camp was barely some 100 meters from Snowline café, and we needed to descend by some 50 feet over to the nearby ridge and reach Himalayan Quest Camp.
We ran inside the camp and saw one side filled with heavy mountaineering gears and equipment stacked. The time was around 12.00pm in the afternoon, when we arrived here and an uncle ji (forgot his name) welcomed us in. He helped us to warm our hands at the wood-burning stove and that literally relieved us from the chillness.
There were around 8 men and 2 women in a troupe, who are on the course of summiting the Moon Peak. They were from the Himachal Pradesh Police department, set on the course of summiting Moon Peak as a part of some tribute to the forces. They had some of the top equipment, massive bags with portable tents, and sleeping mats. Some carried sufficient ration for sustaining 2-3 more days, sufficient water, and all the necessities. All these individuals were lying on the mat inside the camp with heavy blankets.
As I predicted, water went inside the bag and drenched almost all the clothes I was carrying, except for the shawl, jacket, and thermal top inners. With my pants wet and spare t-shirts wet, I changed to a thermal top and tied the shawl to my waist like a “Dhoti” and wore my beany cap on my head. I removed my socks and put them alongside my bag. Arkya changed his attire to thermal inners and thankfully carried thermal pants as well.
We took blankets from the bench and wrapped ourselves to slide inside them. In the meantime, the rain intensity became slower. We had a brief chat with the cops. Soon around 1 pm, I fell asleep since it felt warm inside the blanket.
It felt so anticlimactic after rather a promising and sunny daylight.
~WHILST GETTING DRENCHED IN NON-STOP RAIN
In the meantime, our lunch was getting prepared. The cops woke us up and informed us about having our food. We couldn’t believe it was nearly 2pm in the afternoon and a small power nap turned out pretty good. The rains stopped and it was still cloudy. We received a plate of piping hot Dal and Chawal and this was perhaps the modest yet the best-taste lunch till this point.
I glanced outside our café and looked at the surrounding. I wore the shoes of Uncle ji and stepped out of the camp for the first time after nearly 3.5 hours of rest. The scenic side of Laka visibly got clearer with every passing minute. The cloud had enough for the day and allowed Sun to shine with modest intensity. This wasn’t enough to dry our shoes and clothes for the next day’s trek. Our shoes and socks were drenched to the core, although I had spare socks for the next day, still, the shoes were drenched completely. Such was the intensity of the rain; even a water-resistant Quechua shoe gave up. It would be foolish to wear wet shoes and socks as these could lead to falling ill soon. We were caught in a fix on Indrahar for the next day.
It was tea time. The clock slowly ticked around 5pm and Uncle ji started preparing the evening tea shortly. Exploring the vicinity on foot and while wearing my thermal inners and shawl wrapped around my waist and a beany cap on my head. To say I looked comical would be an understatement xD
Around this time, we got some great shots of the mountains around us. Sonam showed us the trail and the approximate location of Lahesh Caves and Indrahas Pass. While it looked breathtaking and exciting, the condition with our outfits and shoes looked hopeless. There was no way in the world it would dry up that easily. Arkya and I got into a serious discussion on what to do the next day.
It was around 6.20pm and we saw the sun dipping in the background, with an inevitable promise to show up the next morning. The scene was incredible and it felt like a large shiny ball getting inside a pocket of clouds surrounding it. On the other side, the sky was clear for the night, which is a clear indicator of how cold it would get as the night approached.
We saw a man with his guide arriving at our campsite just before the sunset and having a word with Uncle ji. There was the person with his guide, who came all the way from Mcleodganj to Laka in one day and they were planning to do Indrahar the next day. It was his second attempt and he narrated about the location and what to expect and all. In the meantime, Uncle Ji started preparing the dinner for the night and was assisted by Sonam and the other guide. After some serious discussion, we decided to pull the plug on the next day’s trek to Indrahar Pass.
It was a tough call for both of us. We were still mentally committed to completing the whole trek as per the plan. Yet, given the state of our shoes and other outfits, it would be a foolish move to summit such altitudes with wet clothes and shoes from the start. We informed Sonam of our plans and entered the cafe and warmed our palms near the wood-burning stove.
Uncle ji uses an old-fashioned FM Radio box and keeps a track of what’s happening around the world. Since there is no Internet or Mobile tower (barring weak 2G tower in case of Airtel, available at specific points), there is no means of entertainment or even information available at this point. Only with such radio boxes, there were a few stations that were accepting the frequency. Seeing this, we tuned the radio from our mobile and played some songs that were tuned in. Listening to classics on a Starry night with chillness catching up and a peaceful surrounding was like a blessing.
We got our dinner by 9pm and Boy Oh Boy! It was classic Rajma Chawal with Paneer. True to Sonam’s initial claim, Uncle Ji’s culinary mastery, turned out to be exceptionally good. After completing the piping hot dinner in the Chillness and enjoying every spoon of it, it was our time to run inside our tents without shoes. Although it was just beside this café; but to run in naked feet on this cold and wet grounds was a challenge. We managed to reach our tents and wiped our feet on a spare towel we carried.
There was a sleeping bag once again. With yet another night of sleep on this uncomfortable bag was on cards, we braced up to just lie down without any more fuss. This was the end of an eventful day, which began with a promise and only to screw the prospect the next day. Nevertheless, there is always a next time and we vowed to summit the pass some time in the future. With optimism intact, we ended this exciting day and learned several new lessons.
Stay Tuned to the Next Part and the events that followed up 🙂
The Track Walk 