Sangla hike

 May 19th 2019: Pictures from a day long hike starting from the forest rest-house in Sangla village, going through farm lands and up to a beautiful lake. Priyanka, a young girl from the village, agreed to accompany us on the trek and shared many stories of her family and village. On the way back, we stopped at her home to meet with her family and she cooked a delicious snack for us made with their local millet. We also tasted some apples from their farm and discussed some politics - it happened to be the lok sabha polling day in Himachal that day.

 

Monsoon trek to Tikona fort

Our annual department trek this year started from the Tikona Peth village in Maval taluka of Pune district. It was a short hike up to the Tikona fort.

Trekking musings and the Lapah trek

Over the past few years, we have had varied experiences trekking in Himachal. On the one hand we have experienced spectacular natural beauty, and on the other we have had a glimpse into the lives of people living in the remotest of places and under harsh conditions (for example, the solitary lives of the shepherds that we have spoken to, our the Nepali thapa who we met in Plachak last year). During our treks, Saurabh and I often talk about what we seek most on our trekking trips. There is always the thrill of going higher and walking further every time with the kids: the sheer physical thrill and challenge of it is perhaps good for gratifying the ego among other things. We hope that it also makes the boys mentally stronger and it certainly allows us to experience more remote and beautiful places (like the Bhrigu trek, or the trek to Ilaqa glacier and Ranthar last year). Personally, I find myself to be more self-centered during such treks - and my thoughts tend to be more about the marvel of nature and our relation with nature. On the other hand, the other types of treks we have taken are those which are more unstructured, where we start from a forest department rest house and trek further into the hills to more remote villages (Lohardi to Swar in our first year, Bir/Billing-Rajgundha-Plachak last year and the Lapah trek this year). While these are at lower elevation and not so physically challenging, they are through beautiful unspoiled forests where we also experience the lives of people who walk through these very trails as a matter of routine and think of nature as not just a thing of beauty but something that is life-giving. I cannot forget our conversation with the shepherd and the Thapa we met in Plachak last year where we learnt that the trekking routes through Thamsar pass do not begin until the shepherds have crossed through this pass back to Bada Bhangal since it is their sheep and goats who help open the pass and mark the trail. It is only then that the big trekking groups come in reveling in the spectacular natural beauty and the thrill of crossing a 4000m+ pass. But to not think of the shepherd while doing so can only be a false ego-trip.   

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I realized that I never posted a detailed account of last year's treks on the blog. Since that is unlikely to happen now, I should at least post a couple of pictures which I'm sure I had saved to be posted with the narrative.

Rest of them from last year are here

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Our Lapah trek turned out to be an interesting and somewhat adventurous one. Lapah is a village 14km away from Shangharh (in the eco-zone of the GHNP) and not significantly higher in elevation.  We had heard great things about this trail to Lapah and decided to go for it. We knew that there was a forest department inspection hut in Lapah and villagers at Shangharh assured us that there is a chowkidar who manages it and we would be able to stay there overnight.

The trail was a beautiful one meandering through beautiful old growth forest of pine, chestnut, walnut, maple and rhododendron trees. It took us about 5 hours to get to Lapah with multiple breaks along the way (the locals take 1.5 hrs for this journey!).  We had requested a villager from Shangharh - Devinder- to accompany us to Lapah, which was fortunate, because when we reached Lapah we realized that Chunni Lal ji (the chowkidar) had been posted to Bah - a village downhill. Devinder helped in figuring out who had the key to the forest hut. When we finally tracked Shirpad ji (who lives in the upper Lapah village), he handed us the key and warned us that we were on our own and there was no one available to cook. The hut was in significant disrepair (with no water or electricity) but at least it had two beds with warm blankets. Shripadji tried to find someone who may agree to feed us that day but since its the Rabi harvest time in this area most people were away working in their fields. He suggested that we could try finding Babli didi later in the evening who is also a forest department worker. 

In the evening we headed to the main village looking for Babli didi's home. When we found her we asked her if we could get tea in her house and if she or anyone else in the village would feed us dinner. (This is such a normal thing to do while travelling through Maharashtrian villages that I was quite unprepared for their reaction). She and her sister were quite intrigued at first and asked us many questions. They were surprised that we had landed without any food supplies. They were also very sympathetic towards K and A and how tired they look. Finally they told us quite apologetically that unlike the plains, people in the hills are very strict about the caste system and that their devta would not allow them to even offer us a chair to sit unless we were Rajput Thakurs like them (or better). Saurabh and I struggled trying to answer this tricky question - what was our caste? I also felt ashamed at wanting to sound like we were up there with their caste so we could get dinner. While Babli didi was quite willing to relent and let us into her house, her sister was more suspicious and suggested that they would instead bring food over to our hut. For tea, they asked us to be seated on the rocks outside their home and brought us hot tea and siddu - a typical Kullu preparation that we tasted for the first time (a baked bread with walnut filling). Once the modalities of how we could be served the food became clear, Babli didi and her family were quite hospitable towards us. However, K and A felt quite upset and kept asking why they refused to let us in. 

We roamed around in the village after tea. Babli didi's sister showed us their temple from outside and the homes of the few "caste wale log" in the village after which we headed back to our hut. Evening brought thunderstorm and rain. The four of us huddled together in the blankets and played Atlas until Babli didi finally appeared with a tiffin box at 8:30pm. We ate hungrily since this was our first meal since breakfast and the food was delicious: roti, a local green leafy vegetable, daal-chaawal and kheer! She sat with us while we ate and chatted with us for a long time. We learnt that she is only 38 years old and the 6 year old boy with her (Aditya) was not her son but her grandson! She told us about all her family members and her livestock. She had recently lost a cow who had died by slipping in the hills. So she now had a new cow Gauri and her one month old calf. She has 15 sheep. She had worked in the fields all day - harvesting fodder and sowing maize. She also had to run down to Bah village every day to water the saplings in the forest department nursery. She said it took her half hour to get to Bah every day (which took us 1.5 hours the following day). Her son had gone into the forest and had been camping there for the past few days foraging for medicinal plants which grow in this season and are sold for a good value. It turned out that her parents' home was in Shangharh and Prabhat ji (the cook at the Shangharh rest house) was her nephew. The conversation was a peek into their close knit community and a world so different from ours, it was quite humbling.

Babli didi was back early in the morning with tea and fresh milk (Gauri's milk). We took some pictures with her and on Anurag's insistence she took us to her cowshed so Anu could play with Gauri's calf for some time. We bade her goodbye and walked downhill to Bah, crossing the untamed, undammed Sainj river before reaching Niharni where a new hydro project kills Sainj's spirits and tames her down to a trickle. We had breakfast at a dhabha and hitched a ride in a pick-up truck back to Shangharh. A trip to remember, for sure.

Bhrigu Lake Trek

We are back from our three day trek to and back from Bhrigu Lake. Bhrigu lake is in the Pir Panjal range, close to Rohtang pass though slightly higher in elevation. The trek (especially day 2) turned out to be more than what we had bargained for but the boys surprised us yet again with their resilience. The views were spectacular. And it was our first time trekking upto 4000m elevation.

At the same time, the trek also turned out to be a series of mistakes for us. Mostly because we hadn't carefully studied the route in advance and it turned out that we ended up taking a route that was far more difficult than the typical one that starts from a much higher elevation at Gulaba.

Here's a quick summary:

Day 1: We took an early morning bus for Manali. This was a mistake. We should have left at least a day early to leave room for traffic delays and to acclimatize. What should have been a 3-4 hour bus ride took 6 hours due to a VIP convoy leaving Manali and at the end of it we were so exhausted of sitting in the bus that we got out and walked the remaining 2.5km to Manali. We met our guide Sharma ji here and after a quick lunch started the ascent at 2:30pm from Kulang village (located on the Rohtang road). Kulang is situated at about 2200m. We reached the Moridug campsite (2800m, about 7km away) around 6pm after spending some time at the stream below the campsite. Moridug is a beautiful campsite (it has fixed tents and food facility) made extra special by the swings and the shepherds. We all felt tired from the long day and retired early. However, Kabir had an upset stomach which kept him and Saurabh up at night.

Day 2: We started at 6am after a good breakfast. Since we had to return to the campsite at the end of the day we only had a small backpack to carry. The first few hours were through the beautiful forest of oak, pine, cedar, maple and walnut trees. Past the tree-line, we went through lovely meadows overlooking the Dhauladar range. Kabir was in great spirits while Anurag needed some nudging and distracting every now and then which we took turns to do. Sharma ji was a very nice guide to have who kept motivating the kids by getting them excited about what was to come. Once we started seeing snow patches, the kids needed no further encouragement. They were very excited to touch and feel the frozen snow. In an hour or so we reached the snow line. At this point, Kabir's energy levels suddenly dropped as he started to get a headache and we realized that it was altitude sickness that had hit him. However, he was still very motivated and wanted to keep going. We slowed down considerably and took our time to get through the rest of the trek through the snow. Reaching Bhrigu lake (at 4024 m elevation) was more of a relief than a celebration! There were a dozen or so other people already there who cheered for the young trekkers. The lake was largely frozen.

We rested and ate our lunch and started back around 1:30pm. The kids felt rejuvenated and the trek back through the snow was very enjoyable. Although there was a trail of ice made by previous trekkers, we still found ourselves knee-deep in snow by accidentally stepping on the soft snow. But other than having to deal with wet socks, this was a minor problem. The rest of the climb down was quick yet the last one hour really tested the kids' patience. We were finally back at the campsite after a 12 hour trek, just in time for nice hot cups of tea and Maggi!

Day 3: This was the most enjoyable day of the trip. We played at the swings for hours together in the morning, took pictures and generally lazed around at the campsite. Then we headed back the same way we had come, stopping again at the stream for a good half hour before heading all the way down to Kulang. We bade goodbye to Sharmaji, who we will almost certainly plan more treks with in the future. We took the bus back to Mandi right away and were home on Thursday night.