After my first post I was wondering how to initiate the actual "travelogue".
I realised I was a little afraid to not be able to match up my maiden post on this blog.
But with realisation comes empowerment. I decided to brave my apprehension and go ahead and let it all flow out.
We, who live in this city, know our mountains well.
It's our easiest getaway from the hustle of the city life.
Situated in the Kangra District of Himachal Pradesh, Dharamshala has always been a traveller's favourite haunt. Off Dharamshala, is the delightful little town of Mcleodganj for all you, cafe and European cuisine, lovers. And slightly ahead of it- 9km to be precise- is Triund.
Yes, Triund is just a 9km long trek from Mcleodganj and it's considered to be a fairly easy trek, mostly visited in the summers and then in the beginning of the winters.
In fact Triund will be your first stop if you are going all the way to the Indrahar Pass, that is higher up in the Dhauladhar Range or the Outer Himalayan Range.
Given the level of difficulty and convenience Triund is a very popular short, weekend long trekking trip from Delhi.
Ever since I had heard from my friends, I had been planning to visit Triund for quite some time. In December 2014, I with my favourite bunch of people did land up in Mcleodganj, but due to bad weather couldn't make it to Triund.
So when a fellow (far more experienced) traveller proposed a short trip to Triund, I readily agreed!
As it happens with group trips, a few additions and cancellations later we, finally, were a bunch of 5 people who headed out together via train and a last minute addition to the group who took the bus to Mcleodganj.
I was in the bunch of 5.
So it was the Friday night, the night of departure from Delhi.
We took a cab to the Old Delhi Railway Station. Our train was till Pathankot Junction.
The train journey was filled with laughter and banter and some ample amount of leg-pulling!
We were all high in the excitement and anticipation of travel.
We reached Pathankot Junction at 8am. We freshened up in the retiring room of the station.
While others were freshening up, I took a long stroll along the platform.
It's a quaint railway station. The early morning hustle of a fairly empty small town railway station touched a chord. An old worldly charm prevailed in the air.
It was pleasant sunny day. In that corner of the world, time seemed to slow down. Nobody was in any rush.
The morning was beautiful, undisturbed and without a care or a worry.
After a round of extra sweet tea, we booked ourselves a cab to Bhagsu, where we were due, to meet our guide and our sixth companion, who had taken the bus to Mcleodganj.
At 10.15am we left from Pathankot Jn, and joyfully headed towards our destination. We stopped for a hearty breakfast of Parathas and daal as we entered Himachal Pradesh.
This journey was supposed to be of 3 hours only. But as luck would have it, we got stuck a little off Mcleodganj in a narrow strip of road, because of bad road ahead and hence restricted traffic movement.
We managed to reach Bhagsu, roughly at 2pm where we picked up our friend and our guide and we drove off to the starting point of our trek.
We started from Bhagsu around 2.30pm.
Yes, we were delayed.
We reached the starting point of our trek, Galu Mata Temple in Upper Dharamkot around 3.15pm.
After paying off our cab, buying some water bottles and striking up a brief conversation with a couple from Peru, we began our trek.
I remembered to check the time. It was 3.35pm.
We were really late in starting our trek. Though from Galu Mata Temple, Triund is around 7km away. We were still considerably late.
The first 3.5km is easy. Not a very steep incline and no snow.
We managed to cover it by 5pm. We took a break and treated our hungry selves to the Himalayan trekkers' staple : Maggi!
A few clicks and a few bottles of Gatorade later around 5.45pm we resumed our uphill journey.
This time however, things were different.
For starters, we hit the snow.
A few patches here and there.
In less than an hour later we were walking on fully snow covered trail.
Oh, did I mention the time?
It was about 7pm.
The twilight was dying, and the dusk setting in.
At around this time we met 2 young fellows. We rescued them, really.
They had not taken an almost invisible, snow clad turn and had hit a dead end, They were without any guide and had no inkling that they'd find such snow cover during the trek.
They were from Pune. They tagged along with us. So did a couple of other trekkers.
It so turned out that ours was the only group who were braving to scale up to Triund that day in that snow.
And we had a wonderful guide :)
Before we knew it, the dusk had set in and slowly did the night too.
We could see lights from Dharamshala and Mcleaodganj twinkle from below us as did the innumerable stars in the clear night sky from above us.
As I stopped to tie my shoe laces once, I couldn't help feel amazed at, how the horizon had at some point blended seamlessly into the town and the sky.
It was vast and expansive in the dark.
It was infinite.
As the darkness grew so did the snow. And did the incline.
In the light of our LED torches we continued to brave the snow which was more than knee high now.
The cold damp air didn't bother us as much as the snow, that managed to enter our shoes, did.
We were warm from our uphill journey and from the adrenaline rush that we were experiencing in the face of the dangerously slippery snow on the thin trail.
Have you ever trekked in the night?
Then you would know how it works with snow at night.
The snow is hardest in the morning and as the day progresses it starts melting and becomes slippery and unreliable.
So in the evening, it's actually at its worst level of reliability.
Voila!
We were exactly in that "slippery" spot.
But our laughter didn't fade. We continued on our journey upwards.
Many times our legs got stuck knee deep in the snow. But we managed to move ahead still.
And then we reached the last leg of our trek.
If you have gone to Triund then you must remember the final 13 turns.
There are 13 Z bends, as you approach the top.
That basically makes it 26 individual turns, each with higher elevation and incline than the one below.
The difficulty of the fairly easy trek had increased manifold due to multiple reasons but the last 13 turns were the icing on the cake.
I will leave it to your imagination, dear reader, as to how we managed to finish the last leg and reached the top.
But when we reached it was just past 9pm.
We were at an elevation of 9325ft. above the sea level.
We stayed at the Forest Department rest-house for the night.
There was no electricity or water supply.
The night wore on. After dinner and hilarious round of 'bluff'-ing we went out and sat down on the porch of the rest house.
I met the Milky Way. My second encounter with the beauty.
Sitting there, as we spoke, we bonded over our passion for travel.
Work, home, responsibilities, worries, hikes, appraisals all seemed far from reality.
There were moments of silence when wrapped up in our own thoughts, we sat there soaking in the beauty and felt the almost tangible connection with Mother Nature.
I was lost in the appreciation for the insignificance of the self-important human existence.
But not for long, we were a funny bunch and were cracking up incessantly.
The next morning we found Triund in all its frozen glory.
The pristine white snow cover was a stark contrast to the vibrant blue of the clear sky that sunny morning.
The struggle the night before melted away in front of the serene beauty of the Dhauladhar Peak. The view more than made up for all the dangers we braved the night before.
A hearty breakfast of eggs and toast later we began our descent at about 11am.
The downhill climb wasn't as difficult as the ascent. The snow was solid and before it started melting we crossed the snowline.
Our thoughts and conversations kept us occupied and before we knew it, we had come back to the Galu Mata Temple.
We started from Bhagsu to Pathankot Cantt in a taxi at 5pm.
We boarded our train at 11pm and dozed off within an hour.
We were all very tired.
As we woke up the next morning at 6am, we were already at the Sarai Rohilla Railway Station in Delhi.
We parted our ways in cabs and got home by 7am.
It was a cold winter Monday morning.
I could see school kids were awaiting their school bus.
Left to my thoughts, as I entered my apartment, picked up milk and newspaper, I remembered how insignificant we all are in the face of the vastness of the universe.
With a smile on my face, I decided my worries were even more insignificant than that.
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Thank you for being so patient, dear reader.
Thanks to my endless ranting, this post turned out to be much longer than what I had expected.
To make up for that, here's sharing with you a few of the many clicks that 'clicked'.
Happy Tripping :-)
