It all started on the night of the IPL finals. My mother kicked me out of the living room as she felt that my watching the game was a unluck charm for the Chennai Super Kings. So i logged on to my Gtalk and started talking to Vivek . He brainwashed me in to going to this trip. In this entry ill try to make this a guidebook for those who wish to take this trip. This Blog entry will be broadly divided into 3 categories
1. Travelling Arrangements
2. Things Needed for the Trek.
3. About the trek
TRAVELLING ARRANGEMENTS
The first step is to enrolling for the trek. The trek is being organised by YHAI every summer. To participate in tis trek you have to become a member of YHAI. You can become a member for one year (rs 100). Using that membership you can book for the trek.
The first step in this process is booking tickets. In order to take up this trip u need to be at Kasol which is 40 km from Manali. You can catch buses to Manali from Delhi or Chandigarh. So get ur selves to either of these places. I booked the tickets for the buses using www.redbus.in and HPTDC sites. You need to be aware that the bus wallahs allow you to book seats of your choice online but they allocate seats rather randomly on the spot. So u need to talk to the bus man in order to get the seat of your choice.
Once you are on the bus to Manali you need to ensure that u get down at Bhuntar which is 40 kms ahead of Manali. The Bus driver will oblige to do that. If you proceed till Manali then you must backtrack on the same road back to Bhuntar to reach Kasol. Once you have got down at Bhuntar catch a bus to Kasol. There will be a lot of taxis to get you to Kasol but the taxis cost u a lot. Hence buses will be the cheapest alternative. The bus drive from Bhuntar to Kasol will be rough and absolutely thrilling. The YHAI base camp is 1km upstream of Kasol. In order to return you need to retrace the same path.
THINGS NEEDED FOR THE TREK
The YHAI site gives you a comprehensive list of items that you need for the trek. You will need every item in the list. the most important thing in the trek are the shoes. The Hunter shoes are absolutely wonderful. They provide ultimate grip during the trek. I saw some people do the trek with ordinary Reebok shoes. But I advice you to get Hunter Shoes. Many people will advice you to get Hunters at Kasol market(cost approx Rs 250). In Kasol you will get shoes only till size 10. So if your boot size is greater than size 10 better get ur shoes back home in Woodlands or Reebok (ask for trekking shoes. These shoes have excellent grip but are a little heavy).
Apart from this you will need either one winter jacket or sweater and thermal undergarments. A pair of gloves and a monkey cap will make life more easy in the cold climate that you will face at the higher altitudes. You dont need any blankets as they will be provided for by YHAI.
While trekking you only need a an extra pair of pants and t-shirts apart from the one you are wearing. Take as many pairs of socks as possible ( minimum 4-5). Try to take track pants instead of jeans as they are light and dont get wet that easily.
Take all your medicines from home as you wont get any medicines in Kasol. Take Glucon-D and orange candies as well. Take a tiffin box with you. Its an absolute essential. Also take a cup to drink water and tea.
Dont forget to take a pair of sandals as they will be easier to slid on and walk within camps.
THE Trip
My trip started at Chennai Central. This part of the trip was most painful and enjoyable. i was accompanied by Windy, Shashank (DCF) and Vasanth (Infy) When we were travelling across North India there was an intense heat wave. Average temperature across North India was something like 48 degs celsius. with Agra topping at 50 deg celsius. We were virtually fried in our seats in the train. Still we managed a coupla games of bluff and poker. The train was stalled at some arbit station in north India for over 3 hrs. We managed to play football in the station using plastic bottles. Through all this Infy managed to sleep blissfully much to the amazement (and to some extent envy) of everyone around. The train managed to take us Delhi 4 hours late (there was no notable reason for delay) and we made it to DCF's guest house to take a bath and some chow (our last earthly meal before the trek),here vivek joined us, and we reached the RK puram metro station to catch our Bus to Manali. Akash Gupta joined us here. All thanks to Aakash (whose mother tongue happened to be Hindi) we all managed to get some seats in the bus to Manali. The bus (i doubt if it was a Volvo) was a little rickety and shaky. It broke down in the middle of the night and it took considerable amount of time to get it in ship shape. Finally we managed to reach Bhuntar at around 11 in the morning and we took a local bus to Kasol. We checked in to the base camp. here we were joined by Abhiram and Satyajith. and we were loitering around the Kasol market. Kasol is in the only place in India (that i have seen) where there are notice boards in Hebrew Italian and French and not in English or Hindi. The place has an amazingly high density of foreign people. the people have completely lost their local flavour and have started adapting themselves to suit the taste of foreigners.
Day 2 in base camp: this day starts quite early at around 5:30 in the morning. We have to have tea and rush towards warm up exercises. These warm up helped me stretch out my muscles. We returned to the base camp and had breakfast. After cheering up the group which started the trek we went on our acclimatisation climb. This was real fun and if you are not fit it will be very testing on your physical abilities. Once we reached the top of the climb the guide allowed us to relax and introduce ourselves to the rest of the group. I was seriously very surprised to find people from such varied walks of life and from almost every part of India coming for the trek. After the acclimatisation walk you will return to base camp just in time for lunch. After that you will have most part of the day free except for a very educating (and for most part boring) lecture given by the camp director.
Day 3: There was heavy rain last night. Hence one of the previous batches were not able to cross the Sar pass as it was covered with some 4.5 feet of snow. This cast a shadow over our enthusiasm (which was still quite high). Inspite the downcast weather conditions we were taken for a session on rapelling only to find the rocks very slippery and dangerous to rapel on. Hence we went somewhere into the forest to a typical Himachal pradesh village. All the apples in that place seemed only for export. People seemed to have adapted western food items like maggi as staple diet (have to admit it was delicious) we returned back to base camp and we prepared for the camp fire where we were supposed to do something. We decided on giving a live performance of Nakka-Mukka. We decided to explain the "profound message to mankind" delivered by that song. The performance proved to be such a hit that people were asking for an encore (seriously )
Day 4: This was an absolutely memorable day. Our actual trek to Sar Pass was to begin today. The weather was very cloudy and news that another group was unable to cross Sar pass due to bad weather reached the base camp making us all nervous. We still managed to start the trip with high energy level. We were to take a bus from the base camp to a small village from where our trek was supposed to start. Akash, Shashank myself and coupla other brave hearts decided to board on top of the bus in spite of the rainfall. The ride was made more thrilling all thanks to the almost crazy driving of the driver. We travelled on top for some 5 kms till manikaran. here we came down and occupied normal seats. The ride lasted for another half an hour. We reached our starting point and waited for the other batch of people to catch up with us. Once everyone was assembeled we started the trek. This day the trek was not very tough. The weather got very pleasant and we had a very enjoyable trek till Guna pani.
Rest of the Trek: I will not give a day to day account of the trek as it will make this account very boring. Ill just mention ponts worth noting. The next camp of Fual pani is by and large the worst camp in the entire trek. It is on a slope and you will find the tents very uncomfortable here in this camp. the next camp of Zirmi was quite comfortable. We played Wolves here at 11000 ft from sea level. The next days walk to Tila lotli was not very tough but the reduction in the oxygen level made the climb difficult.
Tila Lotli through Sar Pass to Biskeri Thatch -This was the defining part of the trek. At Tila we had to wake up at 2 in the morning and packed of at around 430 in the morning. We ascended for 1000 feet till wereached a height of 13800 ft. And then we reached The Sar pass. it was a beautiful extent of fresh snow which stretched on till we could see. We spent some time playing in the snow and we moved on. walking on ice was very difficult as it slipped very easily. We reached a certain point from which we had to slide down the snow. The slide Was THE MOST ENJOYABLE MOMENT OF THE TREK. It was a slide which lasted a solid 10-15 minutes. After the slide we had to walk for another 90 minutes before reaching Biskeri.
Biskeri to Bhandak which usually is an uneventful trek was made exciting by the rain. the rain made the path very slippery making the climb down a bit difficult and enjoyable. We had to rappel (read rope assisted rock descent) to reach for a rest point. The rest point was almost in the middle of a cloud when we reached there. It miraculously cleared up by the time we left. The rest of the road to Bhandak was extremely pleasant and enjoyable to trek upon. We reached Bhandak which was situated in a beautiful meadow. We had an amazingly good time there. We played cricket there and had a camp fire (sans a fire in accordance to the rules of YHAI) where we performed "Cows with Guns" once again to a thunderous applause. The next morning we had and uneventful ride to manikaran. There wr had a bath at a local lodge and went to the Langar at the local gurudwara. The langar was very crowded and we had a tough time getting something to eat. We reached base camp after lunch.
The next day (my Birthday) was a very very enjoyable day. We went white water rafting in the Beas river. It was not a very ferocious rafting experience nevertheless it was very exciting experience. We were allowed to dive into the river at one oint which promptly did. It was an amazing experience. The guys gave me birthday bums in the water itself. I absolutely enjoyed my birthday . Thanks a lot SP26.
We caught the bus back to Delhi. It was an uneventful ride. In Delhi we went to the Akshardham Temple. It is an awesome place but not a temple in the true sense. its more like an amusement park. Still its an architectural beauty. I started off early so that i could catch my flight back to Chennai.
During the course of this trek i would have wondered why i came on this trek at least a dozen times. Still in retrospection i think this "those were the best days of my life " . The trip was truly worth the physical hardships.....
