An adevnture in the Himalayas

Once in a while, I like to get out of the civilization and go for a retreat to the Himalayas. So, with five other friends, I decided to go for another long trek (my second in recent past) to the Himalayas. Amongst the various options available for a 9-day trek, we picked Rupin Pass, which at an altitude of 15,250 ft (or 4.7 km), snow clad mountains and ever changing scenery, seemed to offer the right adventure. We joined a trekking group which took care of all our logistics, food, sleeping bags and offered reliable guides for the entire journey.

While it was a long journey to get to our base camp itself (a flight to Delhi, an overnight train and an entire day on road), the first sight of our base camp was enough to fill us with excitement of what lay ahead. Our base camp was located in the middle of nowhere, at the bank of Rupin river and had greenery all around. This gave us a good preview of what amazing views awaiting us during the trek.

Our base camp at Dhaula at 5,100 ft

When I say going out of civilization, I literally mean it. We lost network while on our way to the base camp itself. So, we had no data or voice connection and were completely cut off from rest of the world. This is the best part of the trek according to me as it provides an avenue to just be yourself and be one with the nature without any influences/distractions of work and social media.

After introductions with rest of the group, our trek guides briefed us about the trek and important safety precautions. A few important things included: 

• You need to be extremely punctual – more than your usual consultant self. It takes a lot of effort to prepare meals at high altitudes and you don’t want to miss hot meals in cold. Also, weather can be extremely unpredictable in the mountains, so being on time is important to ensure you don’t get caught in bad weather
• You can’t take bath on the trek. This is not only because clean water is scarce up in the mountains, it is also to ensure that you don’t fall sick
• Our trek guides would take our oximeter readings twice every day. Oximeter reading provides the level of oxygen in the blood and is helpful to gauge the acclimatisation level of the body to high altitudes. A rating of 90 is good and anything less than 90 requires caution including sending the trekker back to ensure safety
• As a worst case scenario, one could contract Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS), which could lead to other severe diseases such as HAPE (High Altitude Pulmonary Edema) or HACE (High Altitude Cerebral Edema), resulting in brain damage or death, so safety was everyone’s first priority

After briefing and dinner, we called it an early night as we were tired from the long travel and had the whole trek ahead of us. Next morning, we woke up at 6 am to be ready for the trek by 8 am.

We had to cover 8-9 kms that day and were going to gain another 1200 ft in altitude. The trek was relatively easy apart from the fact that it was our first day, which is typically the toughest. We were lucky to get network at a point during our walk and used that to inform our families of our unreachability for the next few days. Apart from few other trekking groups and occasional crossing of villages, we were trekking through lush green pine forests for most part and reached our campsite around 12.30 pm. After reaching the campsite, we had some rest, had lunch and had the evening to ourselves to roam around, play and enjoy the amazing scenery.

This was our routine for next few days. We would wake up at 5 or 6 am and start trekking by 7 or 8 am. Each day we walked around 10 kms, through rivers, forests, valleys, waterfalls, meadows, hordes of cattle being herded by local shepherds, without any worry or care in the world and just enjoyed the untouched (as of yet) nature all around us. Being alone in such beautiful world brings a unique perspective to life. It allows you a moment to pause and reflect on your day-to-day life while also giving you a rare opportunity to be truly one with the nature. Even the night sky had so much to offer, with unfiltered moon light and millions of stars shining above, even a hyper-active soul like me couldn’t help but feel calm and truly one with myself. Such calmness and quietude are some of the reasons which draw me back to the Himalayas every year.

Some of the serene views during our trek

We first encountered snow during day 5. Though it was a small patch, the first sight of snow is always exciting. We managed to cross it with our trekking shoes, without needing spikes. Day 6 was an acclimatisation day and we spent half a day practising climbing up and down a big snow patch. It was a relatively safe environment and the sense of fun was upon all of us, so instead of practising, most of us decided to slide down. Those who didn’t want to slide down were also dragged by other people who couldn’t control themselves. The result of all of this was a fun filled afternoon with a lot of intentional and unintentional slides.

All smiles after recovering from a slide

The trek got really serious (and dangerous) after day 7. Not only was the air getting thinner (we were already at 13,100 ft by day 7) making it more difficult to breathe, it was also extremely cold. As a result of the cold, the snow patches were getting bigger and bigger till the point we were walking completely on snow. The snow was quite deep and unlike our safe haven of day 6, slipping from a mountain could mean you never return, so we were given micro-spikes to allow us to tread safely on the snow. In fact, our camp for day 7 was built on snow with snow all around. On top of it, it snowed all day and night, adding another layer of fresh snow all around us.

Our snow covered campsite on day 7

Day 8 was the summit day. It was also the longest day and the most exciting day of our trek. We woke up at 3 am to start the trek at 5 am. After climbing a small hill almost straight up, we were in the middle of a mountain range and had pristine snow all around us. We walked for almost two hours on snow to reach the bottom of the pass – our final summit. After that was a short 200 m stretch of 70 degrees incline. Daunting at first look, our trek guides and technical staff (who had joined us especially for the final summit) gave us confidence and led us to the summit.

Walking through the snow

After another hour of climbing through the steep incline, we finally reached the summit. And the view was out of this world. We were at the top of two mountains and just had snow all around us. It was like a sheet of snow had been spread over the entire world and our footsteps were the only thing that could leave marks on the sheet. The snow was so clean, you could eat it and everything was so pristine, that we felt like spending an entire day just sitting there and admiring the view.

Our group at the top, try finding me in the picture. Answer at the end of the blog :)

Unfortunately, this was just a stop for us and we had to continue with our trek. After spending about an hour at the top, we started descending. Climbing down from snow with our spikes on was a piece of cake and we managed to cover quite a bit of distance in the next 2 hours. After an early lunch on the snow itself, we continued with our journey and soon said goodbye to the snow to enter the rocky terrain. With the feelings of the surreal mountains in our heart, all of us were already feeling nostalgic about the majestic view from the top.

Rest of the day was relatively uneventful. We reached the campsite at around 4pm (it really was the longest day of the trek). This was going to be the last night of our trek. So, though missing a comfortable bed, taking bath and a proper toilet, I enjoyed my last few hours of being away from civilisation, being with the nature and last time sleeping in a camp. We could see signs of civilisation quite early the next day and gradually the wilderness gave way to villages and small towns.

We ended our journey at a beautiful town called Sangla. It was a small town built entirely on the side of a mountain. We were back in connectivity, so we informed our families of our safe return. We had data connectivity too, but despite the eagerness to check emails and WhatsApp, I decided to keep my data off for a while and relish the lingering thoughts from the journey I had undertaken over the past few days. I couldn’t hold myself for long, so with a promise to return to the Himalayas next year, I switched on my data and truly came back to the civilisation.

Answer to the pic question: I am sitting just next to the banner on the right side.