Nostalgia: Surpassing the sar pass

It's not everyday that one gets to play frisbee over the clouds with a national frisbee player at 12000 ft, walk amidst the clouds alongside a band, travel with a US police officer, sleep lazily on lush green meadows or gaze, with a cup of tea in your hand, at eagles flying below you or not bathing for 2 consecutive weeks. The Sar pass trek in the Himalayas gave me all this and even more.

This summer, a group of friends ( Surya, Gautham, Rajesh and Giridhari) and myself decided to go for a nice trek in the Himalayas and a friend suggested this trek. At first I was quite apprehensive if I would be able to this trek. Situated at 14000 ft, the Sar pass was easily the toughest trek I had ever done. I had done a couple of treks down south but never an overnight trek, leave alone a 7 day trek. I had struggled to complete the Thadiyandamol trek, which Surya pointed out with utmost glee, and thus I was quite apprehensive. However, we gathered courage ( mind over matter - I kept saying to myself) and the group of us traveled to the base camp of YHAI, at Kasol, after close to a 60 hr travel. I was very surprised to see the number of Israelis in Kasol. Kasol, a very small town, is famous for its joints and parties - probably explaining the number of Isralies .

The base camp from the top

We found the base camp near two huge mounds of sand. The base camp, situated on the banks of the river Parvathi was a beautiful sight. In its back drop were snow capped mountains (Pin parvathi) and the Parvathi was flowing in full gusto, in a very unruly manner. We reached the base camp in the evening just to see the last golden rays illuminate the mountains. There was the serene Pin Parvathi on one hand and the unruly Parvathi on the other. It was as if nature was mocking me with its extremities .

The pin parvathi from the base camp

Dhaari and surya in the acclimatization trek

The first day of the 11 day long program was the acclimatization trek where we trekked in a nearby hill. That was when we got introduced ourselves to our fellow batch mates. Incidentally, our group was high on the number of South Indians and had no girls. We were the second "bajrang dal" in all the 36 batches. Curse of an IITian i guess. The acclimatization trek, true to its name was just a preview of what was to come. It wasn't exactly easy. It was a bit on the difficult side and I was left in despair of how I would manage the trek. I would later come up with a method to cope up with that. On the first night, as is mandatory, our group had to come up with some performances. I was involved in a couple of skits. One of the skits was a bit too technical using IP addresses and hackers. It never reached the audience :D.

The second day of the trek was about rock climbing and the rappelling, techniques not exactly required in the course of the trek. On the evening of the second day, we had to deposit our luggage and remain with our rucksacks alone. The excitement was in the air. Everyone was calling up their homes to say they would be leaving the next day and would not be contactable for the next one week. That night, I had a very uncomfortable sleep thinking about the coming days.

Myself with Shanky ( center) and Anirudh ( right end)

On the third morning, we woke up to the shouts of bed tea. ( actually means that you need to get up and go to the place where they give you tea. Its just that they give it at a time when the entire world is in the bed - thus bed tea.). The D day had arrived. We assembled at the the center of the camp and we prepared to leave. Shouting our war slogans, we walked to the entrance amidst cheers from the next batch. ( Its a wonderful tradition followed by YHAI. The subsequent batch cheers for the batch that starts the trek). High on excitement and confidence, we caught a bus to a nearby place (Unchdhar village) from where we would start our trek. The bus journey was so enjoyable. The 37 of us started singing songs and soon enough the rest of the passengers joined along. Finally we arrived at Unchdhar a couple of hours later and started the decent. The decent was a bit steep and after some time, we had to ascent again. The ascent was quite steep. It was a bit difficult and left me wondering how I would be able to manage the remaining days. That was when I decided to have short term goals which I would follow throughout the trek. My goal then was to reach the first tea point. About 2.5 to 3 hrs later, we reached Sheila village. That would be our first tea point of the trek. I had decided not to take Coffee as instructed ( Coffee is a dehydrant) and had only tea. As i was having tea, I was wondering about the kind of lifestyle the villagers led. Six months of the year, the place was covered in snow and the villagers kinda hibernated. The rest of the six months was when the locals went to the forests and collected herbs or did agriculture locally. A very risky life I thought. Surya, as usual, went berserk over food. He had ordered couple of maggis, tea and soft drinks. I often wonder what his digestive system comprises of. Anyway, a couple of our group trekkers found porters to carry our bags and the group left after the tea break.

A view of the campsite at Galgi tatch

Post the tea break, it was just flat land. It was a very simple trek post tea break and we all took our own time enjoying the trek. There were damaged machinery on the way and a couple of abandoned offices. Human habitation was getting over in this leg of the trek and I was quite happy. ( I have very serious issues with crowds and over population.). As we trudged on, we came across a few streams and waterfalls, the first of the many to come. An hour of a peaceful trek later, we came to our first camp site. Galgi tatch where we were received with a welcome drink. Day one had been a success.

Our camp site at Galgi tatch was located on the banks of Parvathi again. There was also an extremely beautiful waterfall nearby. YHAI had taken utmost effort to set up campsites at the most scenic places. After our welcome drink, we were still high on success on finishing the first day and went around to explore the nearby waterfall.

Waterfall at Galgi tatch

After our return from the waterfall, we had some quick words from the camp leader ( a YHAI official who was responsible for the camp site). He gave instructions on when we would leave the next day and then finally he said. " There is the danger of bears in this area. Be careful.". I was oddly excited on hearing this. I wanted to see a bear for real. Not face to face ofc. But somewhere nearby in the jungles. That night, we spotted quite a few shooting stars in the sky and naturally the UFO stories came out and the bear stories followed suit. Surya came up with a convoluted logic on how to fight a bear if it came face to face ( He had a knife with him for this purpose. Surya is crazy. period). After those conversations, we went to sleep in the dark. ( We no longer had electricity). In the middle of the night, I heard some growls. I was excited and scared. Had a bear really come this far. It was pitch dark. I debated on turning my torch on. What if the bear sees the light and enters our camp? so I decided to wake my tent mates. I turned over to wake up Rajesh and to my horror i found that growls were actually coming from him. I had mistaken his heavy snoring for a bear growl. Even in the dead of the night, I found that so hilarious.

The next morning, we left for Khora tatch, the second campsite. The climb was steeper than usual. But, I guess I had been work-hardened. I found the steep to be like the usual ones. The second day of the trek was quite uneventful and we reached the second camp successfully. Day two had been a success. Khora tatch is named locally after the huge apricot trees found in that locality.

As usual we arrived for the welcome drink and the camp leader gave us the instructions. The bear alert was given here as well. In addition to that a snake alert was also given. People were not supposed to go alone in the nights to take a leak. We were supposed to travel only in groups. That night we had our first camp fire using wooden sticks. An anthakshari followed by a joke session and it was time for us to retire. As usual, we had our share of horror stories and how to tackle snakes and scorpions if they entered. We went to our tent and was just about to sleep when a rat came scurrying across inside our tent. After a tense few seconds, we drove the rat away from the tent. Or we thought so. The rat would return to nibble away a few of the mango bites we carried. We slept that night in fear of bears and snakes and how the next day would turn out to be.