1st trip of the year - Dalhousie winter trek- Jan 2010

I must say this trek started off with a lot of grumbling by me. All those who had promised to come for this trek with me, ditched me at the last moment, hence i was compelled to go with the only person left, Mohit. I had hoped of him to be a good company/experience but he was so not. But anyway i will continue with my other experiences and not dwell on this matter.

It was a cold December night when we started off from Delhi. Having booked a 2nd class ticket to Pathankot we were trying to make this trip economical. What we didn't realize was, winter requires 2-3 blankets in 2nd class compartment and we were just in our 3 layers of woolens and jackets. By morning both of us were frozen solid. I could not feel my feet and no amount of rubbing would get them to warm up. There were a lot of defense personnels in the same compartment who offered advices and blankets to warm us up. My heartiest thanks to them.

Arriving at Pathankot we headed to the Air-force station to meetup with a few of my friends before moving towards Dalhousie. We met up with Pooja and Kapil and had a lovely lunch with them. Then in the evening we decided to move off to Dalhousie for our rendezvous. The drive from Pahankot to Dalhousie is all of 2.5hrs. Dalhousie was chilly yet there was no sigh of snow that we had been anticipating.

We registered ourselves at the base camp and went up to our respective rooms in the YHA hostel. Freshened up and went down for dinner. After dinner there was a party arranged for the 31st night but i was too tired to attend it and really needed my sleep. Hence my new year's eve was spend sleeping. Next morning we were woken up for the acclimatization walk which was of some 8kms. It was a nice refreshing walk which allowed us to interact with the other people in the group. After this trek we had the rest of the day off to finish packing and preparing for the next day of trekking.

The 1st day of the trek was flagged off at 9am and was a trek of 6hr to Kala-top. It was a beautiful route through the jungles with a lot of steep climbs. But the beauty of it all made it worth the effort. We arrived at the Kala-top accommodation at 3pm and after a brief rest and tea headed off to see the view from the highest point in the region. It was another hours climb but the sunset from this place is one of the most beautiful that i have seen. After sunset we went back to the hostel for hot soup and dinner.

Each night after dinner a campfire session was held, wherein people sang songs or told jokes n stories or played games. This form of entertainment was a much needed form of interaction for us.

Next morning we were woken up at 5am for morning tea and were greeted with the good news of the impending snowfall. Our joy was boundless as we received the 1st snowfall of the season a couple of hours later. Catching snowflakes on my tongue was one thing that I've always wanted to do. After a nice breakfast we had to move off towards our next destination- Khajjiar. At 8am we started off. On the way we experienced 1st snowfall and then rains. The route to Khajjiar was one of the most difficult ones. There was a steep descent followed by a steep ascent. By the time we approached Khajjiar it was raining heavily. As we entered our hostel, the heavy rains had turned into heavy snowfall. The beauty of it was breathtaking. Within the hour, everything was covered in white. And the chill that followed later was too much to let us have a good nights sleep. With the lack of any kind of heating instrument around, we had even tried to keep ourselves by the flame of a candle.

The next morning we went down to the lake where the view was stunning. A think fog cover was hanging over the lake and everything around the lake was white. The 1st rays of the sun kissed the mountain tops to make exquisite scene. After lots of photography here we went back to a nice hot breakfast.

We then started off to our next destination Chamba. Chamba is at a much lower altitude than Khajjiar, hence we had to do a lot of steep descending. There was no climbing involved this time and as we went lower it got warmer. The route to Chamba was one of the longest, and once we got out of the jungles it was just a long walk on the winding highway with the sun breathing down our necks. As we dragged ourselves to our hostel in Chamba we were making plans to move off to Dalhousie the same evening as unofficially the trek was over. Hence on arriving at Chamba we decided to make a group and hire a vehicle to get down to Pathankot.

At first we took the ride to Dalhousie to collect our left over stuff and certificates before moving to Pathankot. The drive to Pathankot was another scary experience. After just 1/2 hr or travel we suddenly flooded with a thick cover of fog. The visibility had turned to nil and maneuvering the vehicle on the ghats at night was like trekking blindfolded. We almost went over the cliff twice as we cud not see the bend ahead. After 3 harrowing hours we finally got out of the ghats and the fog and reached back to the Air-force station.

Tired we settled in our respective rooms to have a hot water bath after 4 days. The water felt great and all we wanted to do was drift off to a peaceful sleep on a soft bed with a warm blanket.