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Kyon
Chintha dharthi yadi choti hai, sara aasman hai udne ke liye(Why
worry if the earth is small, you have the whole sky to fly)
-- What a wonderful quote and this coming from a 66 year old
trekker Mr. Tiwari (more about him later) in Seobag base camp.
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1: Time 5:15 AM on 28th May and we hear
a whistle. We all grudgingly get up with sleepy eyes and
find "bed tea" served right outside our tent.
We were asked to get ready for our morning exercises by
6:00. We put on our hunter shoes and our trainer Tek Chand
says you have to jog a mile!! (Anybody who has worn a
hunter shoes will know what it means). We grunt, but we
have no other go, so we start jogging. I find, surprisingly,
that I hadn't lost much of my stamina. |
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May be it was the surrounding mountains and the flowing Beas,
which made the difference. After the jog Tek Chand took us
through some exercises (which I realized later, was quite
helpful).
On coming back to the camp, we had to clean up
the campsite and have our breakfast. (This continued even
in the subsequent camps).
Later at around 10 O'clock we gather for acclimatization.
We choose one of us Mr. Suresh as the group leader and Guru
as co-leader. All of us with 2 woolen blanket each in our
backpack start to climb along with our camp leader Ranade.
After about ½ an hour of steady climb, everybody is huffing
and puffing, and as if as a reward for our effort we reach
a huge waterfall. We take rest and after sometime we all sit
in a circle and start introducing ourselves. We had among
us Bank Of Maharashtra employees (some as old as 50 years)
and a few from Delhi. After the initial introduction Ranade
starts briefing us about Youth Hostel, its activities in general
and Chandrakhani Pass trek in particular. As we were listening
Gautham nudges at me and shows a beautiful bird with long
tail, which I had seen only in Salim Ali's "The Book
Of Indian Birds". It was Paradise flycatcher, not single
but a pair. I was thrilled and before I get over the excitement
of seeing it for the first time we see hordes of juveniles
and adult pairs flying around. I say to myself, my day is
made already!! . Coming back to Ranade I find him quite a
gentleman. A school teacher with a passion to trek, his humility
touched me. He warned us how as we go higher, the camp leaders,
for the fact that they had to stay for weeks with not much
company, might be bit jittery. After listening to other advices
we start our climb down to the base camp.
At the base camp we get to know that we have
the rest of the day free and in case we have any last minute
purchasing to do we can get it done from Kullu. After lunch
we prepare our list and give it to Jitesh and Abhishek.
That is when we hear about one gentleman a 66
year old who had done Har ki Dhun trek and now had just arrived
from Chandrakhani and as if this was not enough, was getting
ready for Sar Pass in the next few days (all 11-13 day treks).
We had to meet him. After lunch while coming back to the tent
I saw Guru, Gautham, Bala all talking to an elderly person.
Presuming that he was Mr. Tiwari, I also approached him. First
thing that struck me was his humility. Here is a guy who has
been trekking for more than 40 years now and he says that
he is like everybody else, learning from every trek that he
does. As I think about it I realize it is indeed true, that
is what trekking is all about. We lose track of time as we
listen to his experiences and before we know, it is dinnertime.
After dinner there is campfire (a rather boring affair according
to me) and then we get back to our tents for a good night's
rest.
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Day
2: Again the same routine. 5:15 AM bed tea, morning
jog, exercises and breakfast. Today was meant to be for
rock climbing, rappelling and river crossing. Morning
8 O'clock saw us starting for rock climbing and rappelling.
We learn from Tek Chand the uses of 'bille'(belay), carabiner,
harness etc. Everyone then started climbing the rock by
turns. Rappelling was more challenging and enjoyable.
By the time everyone finished, it was 11:30 and we go
back to the base camp. |
As we finish our lunch rain starts pouring. Thinking that
our after session of river rafting has gone for a toss we
all go into our tents to have some cozy sleep. But our camp
co-leader Jagjith Singh has other ideas and we soon hear the
whistle (by now we are getting used to the whistles J and
getting a bit irritated too). We reluctantly get up and put
on our shoes. We come to know now that river crossing is not
across the river but a gorge! . Any way we start climbing
up in rain and reach a place where the gorge is wide enough
to get a feel of river crossing. After some of us complete
the crossing rain starts pouring more heavily and Tek Chand
decides it is enough as the rains will make the ropes hard
and make it riskier to use for crossing. Climbing down in
rain, as we find, is easier said than done. Even with the
hunter shoes on, with the mud sticking to the sole, you tend
to slip. One wrong step and you go straight down the hill.
We make a slow progress down and on reaching the camp we are
greeted with hot tea. Rest of the day we spend in packing
for the actual trek. Ranade tells us, and quite rightly, to
carry only one pair of additional clothing and sweater, gloves
for cold. Even after stingily cutting down on all unnecessary
things my backpack seems a bit heavy, what with the photographic
paraphernalia. Evening we lodge things, which we are not carrying
on the trek, in a room near the camp. We have our dinner and
go to sleep, excited and dreaming about the next day when
we start the real trek.
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