Shahstra Taal, 2002

Team Members: Harish Dhawan(sir), Vibhor Jindal(me), Vasu, Kshitij Shah, Shashi Shekhar, Prakriti Khanna, Gautam Verma, Moskhda, Chetan

28^th sep 2002 (sat) – Its been 4 years, since i went on this wonderful trek but i still remember the details so clearly that it seems that i went there only yesterday. After falling in love with the trekking, i joined my College trekking team to embark on yet another wonderful trekking experience. Reached with Kshitij to dhawan sir's home at 1400 hrs. to prepare for the trek. Everybody started coming in, who were all from different courses in our college and i didn't knew very well at that time. After packing the stuff, we had dinner and then we left delhi at 2100 hrs. for rishikesh.

29^th sep 2002 (sun) – Nobody got lost on the way to bus stand this time , took a bus and reached rishikesh at 0330 hrs. Took a jeep to uttarkashi at 0430 hrs. after a early morning tea, which most of us needed. Reached uttarkashi at 0900 hrs. , had a decent breakfast at a restaurant and left for malla village(15 kms) from where we had to start the trek at 1130 hrs. Reached malla village at 1230 hrs. This time we were going on the other side of the ganges(bhagirathi), so crossed the river and went to other side to start a yet another wonderful trek. On the same day, India was playing Sri Lanka in champions trophy final, we were hooked to the radio, while going up towards the silla village. We reached silla village at 1700 hrs. & stayed there in a School building for the night. Everybody was very tired after the bus journey the previous night, so didn't cook anything and eat whatever we had brought with us from home and went to sleep.

30^th sep 2002 (mon) – Next morning when i woke up, everybody was pulling my leg that i was snoring so loud that i didn't allow anybody alse to sleep, but obviously i didn't believe them, as everybody was looking fresh and raring to go and start the actual trek as this was the last human establishment and now the land with real beauty untouched by any human adulteration lay before us to see and enjoy and fall in love with. So we started moving at 0730 hrs. for kushkalyan. Reached Geru(chhaaniyan or shepherd's huts) at 1000 hrs. There we had rest and some snacks before moving on. It was a long day but not very difficult so we kept on moving through the forests and then the forest line started disappearing a little. We were moving away from vegetation, and going up slowly. At around 1600 hrs, suddenly there was a small steep climb, which really tested our patience, but we did all right and reached kushkalyan at 1730 hrs. and then it was time to pitch tents and yes, i forgot to mention that me and kshitij were carrying the tents, so after the journey, we had to open the bags to take out and pitch the tents, which was kind of annoying. But since this was first time i was going to pitch the tent, i was looking forward to learning how to do it, so it was fun atleast that day. So we had dinner and played antakshari and went to sleep after trying to get the scores of champions trophy final as the game has been washed away the previous day, but the signal was not very clear, so couldn't figure out what was exactly going on.

1^st oct 2002 (tue) – It was sort of a rest day to acclimatize for the onward journey which was going to get tough. After waking up late, we moved around a bit. At around 1100 hrs., we decided to move a little further, so that we have better views and also, we would have to move a little less next day. Just moved for an hour, and pitched tents at another location. There was a small waterfall on a side of a mountain, so some of the people had a refreshing bath there. Moved around a bit, as it was sort of a pasture surrounded by small isolated mountains, so tried to climb one, but got bored a little after a while, so came back. After that relaxed a little and read novel and had a nicely cooked rice for dinner before going to sleep in anticipation of a hard day ahead.

2^nd oct 2002 (wed) – This morning we were supposed to rise early and leave by 0700 hrs., but as always we were a bit slow but eventually started moving at 0800 hrs. towards cross kyarki pass. As soon as we started moving, we encountered the first steep climb of the day and boy it was hard, after that we reached a bugiyal(pasture) & after that there was a real steep climb, which was a very hard one for the body, and at time I sort of thought, why I am here, I should be at home sleeping in the bed, but I believe that’s the sort of challenge we need sometimes to make us realize the importance of always keep trying against all odds. I might be going overboard, but I felt that way as it was something really hard on the body which is not really used to be working hard. Then we reached a landslide just below the kyarki pass, where we had to very careful, as we were moving on loose rocks with 90 degree drop below us. Sometimes, it could be really scary and make you realizez the importance of life. Well, we reached safely without any problems to kyarki pass, another first for me, first time I was crossing a mountain pass. We stayed there for 15 minutes, then had to move down on other side as the pass was engulfed in fog and it was really getting very cold there. Moved for another half hour down-slope and reached a place near a water source and pitched tents at 1545 hrs. This place was sort of a cup, and we were surrounded by mountains on all sides, so not much of a scenic beauty, but it was a nice and cozy place to spend the time as there wasn’t much wind there. Then, instead of playing antakshari this time, we all started to sing one by one, and I could have done that foolishness of singing at that height only where not many people were there to watch me sing, but I still don’t know how can they stand me singing, as I am not even a good bathroom singer. But, I believe people do make few mistakes, which they regret all their lives, and whoever heard me singing that day will have the regret of not stopping me from singing for the rest of their lives. I could say the same for another person in our team, but I am not naming any names.

3^rd oct 2002 (thu) – We were getting more and more lazy by the day, so this time we started at 0900 hrs for lamb tal. As we were in the cup, we had to get out of it and it was a tough climb but the body responded this time much better after two climbs the previous day. We kept on moving and reached the place which had a place called dharamshala, where there was a small structure of hut left of a restaurant. This was the place dhawan sir reached when he had tried this trek earlier in may that year. So, from now on, we had not much of an idea about the way, and we moved on. We reached a lake which we thought to be lamb taal at 1500 hrs. and stayed there after we pitched the tent. Then we did something that not many sane people do, but that’s the beauty of the mountains, that you do things, which become memory for the lifetime whether sane or insane. We started playing football at what must be around 11000-12000 feet with a sock, for which we made the ball by filling a sock with trash papers, played football for about an hour and we were totally exhausted although the field size was just few yards. But it was best game of football, I have played in my life. After dinner, we went to sleep rather then torturing each other again with the singing. It got extremely cold at night. Even inside the tent and inside the sleeping bag, we were freezing.

4^th oct 2002 (fri) – Next day we started for shastra tal, our objective for which we started out, and we went without gear at 1000 hrs as we had to come back to our camp to stay for the night. As we were going up, we found the real lamb taal, but we had found our own lamb taal, so it didn’t matter anymore. Reached a high point from where we had an awesome view of Shastru peak and it was a bright and sunny day, so we sat down and engulfed the beauty of nature for 2-3 hours, some people moved towards the shastra taal, but some us were so awestruck by such a beautiful view, so just sat down and enjoyed the view. We started back at around 1500 hrs. Dhawan sir didn’t came back with us, he had gone ahead and he roamed around a bit and came back with a water bottle with water we had been drinking for past 24 hours, it had small red insects, which we hadn’t noticed earlier and we had been drinking that water, they looked so bad, it made me feel sick for a moment or two, but then these are things beyond our control, so why to worry about them. We had a nice and healthy debate that evening and went to sleep that night which was even colder than the previous night.

5^th oct 2002 (sat) – This was the day we had to start back , but it was going to be excited as we were not going back the same route, we were going back the other route. It was going to be a long day, so we started towards Mahsar tal at 0800 hrs. At first, it was fun going down, we were enjoying, there were very small stretches where we had to climb but nothing really serious. So we were enjoying the beauty of nature while coming down. Then there was a difficult stony passage where we had to be very careful, and we were slow through it. But we kept on going. It was 1600 hrs. and all of us had no water to drink. We were thirsty but there was no water in sight and we were still quite far away from our destination. That moment was a test of will for quite a few of us, we were getting tired, but we had to move on, we had no other option. It seemed like we had been walking for ages, this was the second instance when I felt, why am I here, but we had to move on, we could not stop, so we walked and walked and walked. It became dark and took out our torches and kept on walking and finally reached mahsar tal at around 1930 hrs. As we were thinking about pitching the tents, and Vasu found a under construction building, that was the happiest moment of the trek, at least for me and kshitij because we had the tents and we were not really keen to take out the tents. So we went in and it was nice and cozy place, so we stayed there for the night. Nobody was in the position to cook, so we had biscuits and slept.

6^th oct 2002 (sun) – We decided to have a rest day. I woke up around 0700 hrs and went out alone and moved around the mahsar tal (lake) for a while, watching the reflecting of mountains in the lake for quite some time and enjoying the view. It was a beautiful day, not too cold or hot and sun was shining bright, so we went to the lake and had a shave after god knows how many days. Shaving never felt so good in life before. Then around 1300 hrs, we started playing dumb charades, and played it for 5-6 hours. In the evening, another group came behind us from lamb taal, and they told us that they had a bad few days, they hardly saw the sun and they were not able to reach shastra taal as it started snowing heavily and they had to abort and come back. We realized that we were lucky to have good weather all through the days and able to reach shastra taal, according to the local porters who were with that group, we were the last group that year to have reached shastra taal as it was now covered with snow and way had closed. We felt happy to be able to reach our destination and we were at the same time a bit sad for the other group who had bad weather following them all the way. But, nobody can do anything about such things, its all about luck in the mountains, we had been lucky with the weather as we were always ahead of bad weather by a day or two. In the night, dhawan sir played a prank on gautam, dhawan sir acted as a ghost after gautam had slept and woke him up, he was terrified to look at dhawan sir who was looking like a real ghost. At first, we were laughing but after looking at gautam’s face, we were concerned for a moment or two. But everything was fine after a while. So we went to sleep after another eventful day.

7^th oct 2002 (mon) – We woke up refreshed and raring to go, so started walking back at 0800 hrs. to a village named BoodhaKedar (ThathiKuthar)(22 kms. from Mahsar tal). It was a steep descent all the way so we were able to move quickly. By 1500 hrs, we reached the village, but the last bus had already left, so we had to stay in a government rest house. We bought some flour and decided to make aloo parathas, we made around 50 parathas, and the other group gave us some egg curry and rice as well and we also offered them some parathas, although reluctantly. So, when we started to eat, we were fighting for eggs and parathas, and it was fun. We had a very filling and delicious dinner after so many days and went to sleep happy.

8^th oct 2002 (tue) – Next morning we had to start back on a journey towards delhi in the morning, so I had a bath after I don’t remember how many days in the river. We boarded a bus at 0900 hrs. for Ghahsali. Travelled on top of the bus and it was awesome. We had a lunch at ghansali, and took a sumo for rishikesh. Reached rishikesh at 1700 hrs. & boarded bus for delhi.

Barnala Taal 2002

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.