Team Members: Harish Dhawan(Sir), Vibhor Jindal(me), Abhishek Sinha, Arunabh Chakravarty, Anshuman Kashyap, Dhananjay Sharma, John Joel Alex, Kshitij Shah, Manish Mittal, Sukant Sharma
20th feb 2002 (wed) – This was the first time in my life when i was going on a trek. But I didn’t knew that I am going to enjoy it so much that this will be first of many treks. I reached Dhawan sir’s home alongwith my friends at around 1430 hrs to prepare for our first trek. Then we started packing our bags, as we were not talking any porters with us we had to carry all our things on our own. Had dinner and left sir’s house at 2000 hrs, Sir asked us to follow him to ISBT, but only five of us followed him and others got left behind. We reached ISBT(sir and five of us). After half hour he returned with other six who took a rickshaw to reach ISBT And then we left for rishikesh from ISBT, Delhi at 2100hrs.
21st feb 2002 (thur)- reachead rishikesh at 0300 hrs, Had tea and snacks & left for uttarkashi in an ambassador and a Sumo. After an hour of sleep in ambassador I was summoned to front seat by the driver as Abhishek was sleeping in front seat. We reached uttarkashi at 0900hrs, we had breakfast of bread and butter there and left for barsu(30kms). Reached barsu at 1300 hrs. and started trekking for barnala tal at 1345hrs., After just moving for 15 minutes, Tarun went the wrong way after someone, and suddenly small stones started coming towards him, He was really shocked and vowed not to move an inch. But we convinced him to move on. After 10 more minutes, we reached a very small patch of snow and everybody was so existed, that we started taking photos of that small patch of snow, not realizing that we are going to be surrounded by snow for next few days, Personally that was the first time I had touched snow in my life.
We moved on for another half hour and there was snow everywhere. We moved on and reached barnala at 1730hrs amidst heavy snow. There was a training camp going on there, so only one hut was empty we took it and stayed in it. Sir cooked dinner for us, we ate it and went to sleep.
22nd feb 2002 (fri) - After waking in the morning at around 0700 hrs., we all put warm clothes on and went out of our hut. It was just awesome, there was snow everywhere, we enjoyed ourselves in snow and took lot of pictures as sun was just coming out. We skidded, ran, fell in the snow and enjoyed ourselves. After Breakfast of cornflakes and milk, we started moving without gear to visit Barnala tal at 1030hrs. Reached there in half an hour, While on our way up, we started hitting each other with snow, it was such great fun.
When we reached on high point near barnala tal, the other group was practicing Skiing, Although we don’t know Skiing we still got ourselves photographed with skies as just another good memory. By that time we were really enjoying ourselves. On the top of slope there was a sitting place. We sat there and lighted fire, and started discussing about various topics. In the meanwhile Anshuman & someone made a Snowman. After that we started sliding on ice using a big plastic sheet, That was one of the best moments of that trek. After some time it started snowing heavily we started back to our hut at once. Once we reached the hut, we were feeling very cold. Then Dhawan sir made a mixture of Gur and Ginger, which helped a lot. After that, in the evening we started the fire in small fireplace in hut itself and started drying our shoes and talking to each other and having fun, Snow was still falling heavily. Dhawan sir was cooking and we were enjoying the fire. After that we had dinner and we got into our sleeping bags as it was really getting cold because of constant snowfall. We sat and talked late into the night and went to sleep in early hours of next morning.
23rd feb 2002 (sat) - When we got up in the morning snowfall was still on and was getting heavier. The other group came and warned us that we should leave as snowfall is not going to stop and we might get stuck there. Then Dhawan sir told us that “locals(hill folks) tend to underestimate distances and overestimate weather”. This is the best advice that i got regarding Trekking. After breakfast we started to pack. When everybody had packed, we had some group photographs taken. Then we started leaving one by one at around 1100 hrs as snow was really getting heavier, In the meanwhile Dhananjay was really enjoying himself, falling every few meters in snow. Then it was turn of Arunabh to show his mettle and started sliding towards Khai. I had to bring him with me to stop him from sliding. When we were out of snow and reached stones I had my share of sliding to do, so I fell twice, and it felt nice to be part of action. Without any major exiting incidents after that we reached barsu at 1330hrs and stayed at dhawan sir's friend’s house. There we had bath after three days. In the evening we sat in the room as Kshitij and Dhananjay helped sir to cook some dinner. After dinner, we went to sleep after sharing few good jokes.
24th feb 2002 (sun)- Woke up at around 0700 hrs and got ready to move down to main road to get a jeep to reach Uttarkashi. We reached main road by 1100 hrs. And then me, Kshitij and Dhananjay had bath in Ganges and we took a jeep at around 1200 hrs and moved to Uttarkashi by 1300 hrs. We had lunch there and Sir got us a Sumo(as he stayed there to wait for another group) to reach rishikesh. We enjoyed all the way to rishikesh by continuing our jokes which some of us had sense not to tell in front of sir. We reached rishikesh at 2000 hrs and had dinner there and took a bus to delhi at 2100 hrs and reached our homes early next morning.
