Trek to Sar Pass

Date: 6 May 2009 to 20 May 2009
Places visited: Manali, Solang Valley and all places en route to Sar Pass

Alright, with the bird brain that I have, I’m taking forgetfulness to new lows (or highs). I tried to blog about Kashmir more than a month after the trip, and the disaster of my previous blog is there for all to see. So, point noted. From now on, the trip report shall come in as soon as I finish a trip.

People on board this time – Swaying Palm (SP), Caught in Love (CIL), Rathore (R) and yours truly. Somehow these love-struck wonders seem to make their way into our camps quite often these days on all our trips! These were the four of us who went together. Other characters will be introduced as the story progresses.

So, Swaying Palm casually sent me a link while chatting sometime around mid-Jan / Feb. It was to the Youth Hostels Association of India (YHAI) website. I’d vaguely heard about them before, but never knew what they actually did. Going through the link made me realize that they arrange some awesome treks and trips at throwaway prices. Initially meant for students, they accept people of all ages anyway. You only need to become a member of YHAI before you can register for a trek.

Of the many treks that were there on the site, two seemed to catch our attention – one was to a place called Sarkundi while the other was to Sar Pass. Wikipedia and Indiamike seemed to suggest that Sar Pass was the prettier one among the two. So, the bunch of guys that we were, we decided to settle for the hotter chick. The entire trek was for 11 days. The first and last day just being reporting and departure days, the actual camping was 9 days long.

The planning for this trip started months ahead. Convincing people for such trips is always a big headache, but we somehow managed to rope in two more enthusiastic souls. Another bunch of 11 people decided to do a biking trip around Manali and Rohtang Pass around this time. We kept our brains intact and decided that we’d not join them but go ahead with the trek. After all, it’s not often that you can test your body and mind and play around with your life. Biking can be done anytime!

All set, CIL and I set off from Bangalore on May 6th by KF evening flight. SP and R were already in Delhi/ Jaipur by then, so we’d meet them there the next day. Next day being election day, May 6 was a dry day in Delhi. Oh before we get there, I should tell you about the place we stayed – a comfortable hotel called Hotel Chanchal Deluxe – in a place called Paharganj. Try going there in the night and you’ll realize that it’s in no way lesser than Vegas. Entire streets of neon lighting filled with hotels all along makes it quite tough to find your hotel. In this place, you name it, you’ll find it.
Got up at around 11 the next day and tried to head out. 5 minutes in the sweltering heat and we decided that the room with the comfort of an air conditioner was a million times better. Even as we were heading back, SP and R arrived with their luggage. We put it back in the room and headed to Connaught Place for lunch. Nirulas beckoned. Burgers and meals and ice creams and a few hundred bucks poorer, we realized that we had a bus to Manali at 5:30 pm and it was well past 3 by now. So the four of us decided to head back to the hotel. Since I wanted to try out the metro, we thought we’d go by metro till New Delhi Railway Station and then walk down to the hotel. Our hotel was very close to the railway station. The only landmark we knew here was “Sheela Cinema” – a place which we’d only heard about as a landmark, never seen.
The metro ride was a nice experience in itself. When we got out of the gleaming metro station, we realized that we were completely lost! Since finding out the right place in Paharganj is quite tough, I walked up to a man and asked him how to get to Sheela Cinema. He told me that there’s another theatre quite close by and that we could go there instead. I insisted that I know the route to Sheela Cinema. He started swearing at me with a few lewd gestures to boot. Taken aback, I moved on. We tried asking a few others for directions but it almost always seemed to evince the same kind of response. We then caught an auto whose driver promptly charged us forty bucks and dropped us at some place. He told us that Chanchal Hotel was in the next road and was walkable from there. After alighting, we realized that we’d been taken for a ride (quite literally!) and dropped off at some other godforsaken place. Another wild hunt and about half an hour later we ended up at our hotel. We freshened up, packed our bags and left for the bus stand. After coming back to Bangalore, I asked my colleague who’s a native of Delhi about Sheela Cinema - turns out it’s a place which films only adult content.

8th May
Got out of the bus in Manali and headed to the room. Today was our “off” day – we had nothing solid planned as yet, but wanted to do something exciting nonetheless. We had a tentative idea of going to Solang valley – a 17km drive. Solang valley is popular among tourists as a place to do paragliding and Zorping. Zorping is an activity in which 2 people are tied up inside a transparent ball and rolled down the slopes of a mountain. Sounds exciting, but it didn’t really excite us when we saw it there. It’s something similar to what you see on Takeshi’s castle sometimes. Hehe. We got ready and headed to the city center around 1pm – after the cab guy who was supposed to pick us up gave haath. We managed to find two Enfields for Rs.350 apiece. Taking them, we headed off to Solang valley. After a bumpy ride with a couple of photo stops, we reached Solang valley. We bargained and got the Rs.900 ride for Rs. 700. (We were taken for a ride – literally and figuratively too). There’s something exciting about jumping off a cliff – even when you’re not dejected in life. And when you know that your life is in safe hands – more or less – you feel OK. The wind was just fine, and we all managed to have a pretty good landing after about 45 seconds to a minute in the air. The views were brilliant – snow clad mountains on the left, grassy mountain behind, pine forests on the right.

By now it started to get cloudy and CIL really wanted to get back before it started raining. I kind of agreed with him, but nevertheless, wanted to have a plate of mirchi bajji and maggi before starting off. After having waited for what seemed like eternity, we realized that scooting from there was a better option – so we headed back to Manali all famished. On the way back, we stopped at a teeny-weeny shop where we had some of the best momos. He even gave us the hot broth in which he’d cooked them. This was truly relished by us after a cold and long day out in the dusty and grimy roads.

Pit stop done, photos taken, we drove back to Manali. Along the way we saw people going for hot air balloon rides next to the Beas river. That huge blue and white monster sure looked sexy with fire bellowing down its bottom. So, that was today. Dinner at some place called Madras café and we were back in the room. Somehow there’s this fancy to name restaurants as “Madras Café” in Manali. We were able to spot atleast 4 Madras Cafés within a radius of 200 meters.

May 9:
We needed to report at Base camp Kasol today. This place is about 60km from Manali but takes 3-4 hours drive due to the hilly terrain. SP and Rathore had still not completed their shopping. Also, we were all waiting to get raincoats from the Adarsh and gang who’d gone biking before us. We finally met them and after spending about half an hour and raiding their belongings, off we were on a bus to Kasol. We had to change buses at Bhuntar. As we were already late, there was no time for lunch today either. Talk about Bhooka Naan. So, we effectively did nothing the entire day. We spent only about an hour with the other guys. And we travelled from 3 to 7pm. When the bus dropped us off at base camp, it was quite a beautiful sight – the Parvati river flowing below. Next to it were about 20 tents – all lit up with serial lighting and shiny streamers. It somehow looked very fascinating and enticing like “The Shire” from The Lord of the Rings. The bittersweet (mostly sweet) ordeal started here on. We were allotted our tent (#17) and we settled down for the night. After dinner, there was a “campfire”. Since YHAI believes in sustainable travel/ trekking and eco-friendly camping, etc, the campfire is a bunch of serial lights strung together.

Each batch generally elects a leader, a deputy leader and an environment leader. The leader is called upon to light the campfire by flicking the switch. After a few songs and dances, just when we thought we were getting bored, Magic Uncle came on stage. He was a 50 something guy from Chennai who can do a few magic tricks. While we could see through some of them, some were really good fun to watch. He made a guy tie his hands up. His assistants had to put a blanket over his hands and he removed the knot and waved his hand. He put it back inside the blanket and now when the blanket was removed, his hands were still tied! Well, this was how it was supposed to work atleast. But the first time round, our guy tied the knot so well that he wasn’t able to remove the knot at all!! He asked his assistants to untie him and started all over again. But a few other tricks that he did later as we proceeded on the trek were quite interesting. Too bad he had to drop out half way through the trek due to bad health, else I’m sure we’d have had a lot more fun – either with him, or at his expense.
Since SP, Rathore and myself were planning to camp at Spiti valley after the trek, we’d borrowed a couple of sleeping bags from the biking gang. This came in handy while sleeping inside the tent at base camp.

May 10:
The whistle blew at 5am and we’d have to get ready in no time and start with the exercises. After the drill, we were given breakfast. We’d been instructed to take our own plate, spoon, steel tumbler, etc. which we used for our meals. This was followed by a 3km “acclimatization” trek today. It was raining this morning so we went up the hill with our raincoats on. We went till the top of a hill where we lit pine cones and made a small fire. The whole afternoon was to ourselves, we went to the Kasol city and had a nice bath in the hot springs next to the river. The whole idea of bathing in the open in your underpants along with a couple of other guys freaked me out, but then.. when the temperature is so cold, there’s nothing like a hot bath amidst such scenic settings… So we went for it :) May 11:
Basically a time-pass day today. Did some stuff like rappelling and rock climbing. By evening, we started packing our bags for the actual core 1 week trek which would start tomorrow. We’d come back to base camp after 7 days. We’d been instructed to travel light since we’d have to carry our entire luggage in the backpack on our own all through the trek, through all terrains. So, something akin to cost-cutting started in all the tents. People had to decide what to leave back at base camp so as to reduce the weight of their backpacks. It’s impressive how innovative people can get. Most of us left our plates behind thinking that we’d use the lunch box for both packed lunches as well as for having food at the camps. People didn’t get soap to reduce a couple of hundred grams. Some got the soap, but left the soap box back. SP suggested taking half a tube of toothpaste instead of a full one so as to save 50gm. CIL left his slippers behind.. But not a good thing to do considering you’ll need to wear them at every camp to go out here and there. This done, we just prayed that we’d have a good trek, and, more importantly, that the weather gods would be kind to us. A previous batch had to be called back because of bad weather and they could never cross the pass. That was the last thing that we wanted. Having gone all the way, we wanted to come back having accomplished what we’d set out for.

May 12:
Kasol base camp - Shila by bus.
Trek from Shila – Guna Pani
D-Day had arrived. We set out of our tents in our rented YHAI backpacks. All the extra luggage was checked in for safe custody, and off we went!

Sujith (fellow trekker): “Ek baath bathaon?”
Rest of us: “Kya bhai kya?”
Sujith: “SP - 12”
Rest of us: “Wah bhai wah!!”

This was one of our slogans for the rest of the trek.
We left the base camp and caught a bus to this place called Shila which is about 10km from base camp. The trek starts from here. As soon as we got off the bus, our guide was there waiting for us. He showed us the route. From this point, we could even see our camp for the night – it was on the mountain in front of us. So near, yet so far…

Including the lunch break, it took us close to 5 hours to reach Guna Pani. We reached there by about 3pm. So, the trek had begun! And this was our first camp outside Kasol. It’d be another week of roughing it out before we headed back. While having soup and tea, we tried to socialize with the other group members by playing dumb charades and 20 questions. By then, it was dinner time! None of the camps have lighting of any sort, so dinner needs to be finished before it gets dark. Also, none of them have toilets, so you either need to do stuff before it gets bright and sunny outside, or, get used to doing stuff in broad daylight.
May 13:
Guna Pani – Fual Pani
This morning, after breakfast, we cleaned up the tents and campsite and started off from Guna Pani at about 8am. Our next destination was Fual Pani. We usually took breaks every hour or so, and lunch break was a leisurely one hour. There would always be locals making maggi, omlettes and masala chai at the lunch points and selling them at exorbitant rates. But then, considering you’re in the middle of nowhere, most of the times even without a cellphone signal, none of us could complain about the prices. And not having a working phone meant no pizza delivery!
SP, CIL and Rathore were usually the frontrunners in the group, always reaching the next camp much ahead of others. On the one hand, it was bad cos they were not adhering to the rules of staying in a group, etc etc.. On the other, this always ensured that we got to sleep in the best tents available in each camp.
The rest of us reached Fual Pani by 5ish in the evening.

By then, our three heroes were already sleeping in the tent ready to welcome us. Once all of us had arrived, the camp leader gave us his welcome speech. Since he was leaving this camp, he introduced us to another camp leader who happened to be a bespectacled teacher from Ahmedabad. Both of them nicely advised the threesome to stick to the group and not go to the next camp ahead of the guide. But it’s another story that rules are meant to be broken while on a trek.
This camp is on a very steep terrain and everything feels like it’s been tilted by 30 degrees. The camp, the tents, the ‘loos’.. quite tough indeed.
Here Oratorji (Ajit Pasi) caught our attention by teaching us a new game called ‘Mafia’. The game has a co-ordinator who secretly decides a mafia/ killer from amongst us. The rest of us become innocent villagers. The mafia kills one innocent villager in each round of the game, and the villagers try to reason out, vote and kill a person from amongst the players who they feel is the mafia.
The game can be quite intriguing and interesting! Rathore went on a rampage killing whoever he felt like because of his “Don’t use logic, use gut feeling” logic (pun unintended).
Dinner and we continued mafia again at the expense of missing the camp fire despite the camp leader himself coming to our tent and asking us to join in.

May 14:
Fual Pani – Zirmi
Breakfast and off we went. But not before a speech by the teacher from Ahmedabad. Few points of his speech were:
Magic uncle to be safely taken back to base camp since he was feeling the trek to be quite exhaustive
Nobody to reach the next base camp before the guide..
Atleast from the next camp onwards, I request all of you to join in the campfire unless you are feeling sleepy. Please don’t sit in the tents and play amongst yourselves.
Thank you for the co-operation extended. (Part of original speech template sent to all camps)
This evening we reached Zirmi – a beautiful place amongst lush green meadows. Not many trees around the immediate vicinity. The beauty of this turns into a disadvantage early in the mornings when you start scooting high and dry for some form of tree cover so that you can finish your job in quite solitude – with time all to yourself.
The camp leader was from Punjab here and he welcomed us to the base camp.
Thanks to our threesome, we got the best tent here – facing the valley with a pine forest in front of our tent. Beautiful location.
Water was a slight problem here – so nobody was to touch the pipe that was coming down from some stream far away.
However, people kept tugging, pulling and lifting the pipe which meant that water supply was intermittent. And each time we’d have to call the kitchen staff to set things right. Considering the amount of pain that they went through to connect back the pipe each time, nobody usually came out of the kitchen happily to fix the pipe. Tony/ Lucky Man (Lakshman) used his fluent Hindi to apt use with phrases such as “Hey, Pipe ke upar kaal math rakho!” (Kaal is leg in Kannada).
Mafia continued. This night, Paul and K2 kept the alarm for 4am the next morning to finish business in the dark.
It rained and there was a light hailstorm sometime in the evening, but nothing heavy/ disruptive.

May 15:
Zirmi – Tila Lotni

4am in the morning:
Alarm rings - Beep beep.. Beep beep..
K2 :”Four”
Paul: “K2, what time is it?”
K2: “Four”
Paul: “What time is it?”
K2: “Four”
Paul: “Is it four”
K2: “Yes, it’s four o’clock.”

By the end of this conversation, most of us were awake. The two of them left the tent. As they opened the tent door, we saw the whole valley awash in pure white moon light. You could see the full moon with its craters casting milky white light on the mountains, the pine trees, the ground, everywhere! Sheldon (Vivek) told Krishna to try capturing it on his SLR. I wanted to go out, but was too sleepy to even open my eyes any longer. And it was so freakin cold, that venturing out was like moving from a nice hot fireplace into an igloo – no thanks. So, I slept assuming that Krishna would have got a good shot. Krishna came back after sometime to say that it was very tough without a tripod. Some moments are best captured in the mind I guess.
Sujith later told us that the temperature was 3.2 deg Celsius the previous night.

Today we headed out to Tila Lotni – the highest camp in this trek at 12000 feet. Fed up of Aloo, pooris and rotis, I had nice hot maggi and an omelette for lunch today. Maggi had never tasted so good! And was worth the 35 bucks I paid for a bowlful of it. The price of these things at lunch point keep rising along with the altitude. After all, its tougher to get supplies to higher altitudes.
After lunch, much of the trek was in snow. Rathore and SP tried to race up a hill with a local guide, ran out of breath in a few seconds and had to sit down and take rest.
A lil while later, it started raining. All of us took out our rainsheets, raincoats, etc and continued walking. Trudging through the ice, slipping and sliding, the rain turned into a snowfall! For many of us, it was our first time in snow. And a snowfall was an added bonus.
We reached Tila Lotni by 4:30- 5pm. The campsite is right next to mountains filled with acres of snow! We danced, took pictures, and got ready for the big day tomorrow. We would cross Sar Pass!

May 16:
Tila Lotni – Sarpass – Biskeri Thatch Day arrived! Our camp leader had told us that we’d have to leave by 4am this morning since the weather is highly unpredictable at these high altitudes. The boys in our tent (experts at dealing with the alarm clock) kept the alarm for 2:30 am. We’d have an hour or so to pack up and get ready.
The alarms went off on time, we got up, got ready and waited…
And waited…
And waited some more!
The camp leader was nowhere in site! Unlike other camps, he didn’t even blow the whistle. This was a welcome change, no doubt. But at the same time, this was D-Day! We wouldn’t mind the whistle if we had to leave the camp on time.
Slowly people started getting ready and by the time we finished breakfast, it was close to 6:30am.
Since the weather was brilliant, they’d decided that we’d leave by 7am. But the camp leader never informed this to us. The trauma of this experience haunted me for a week even after we landed in Bangalore. I’d be wide awake early in the morning. It took me a full seven days to get rid of this bad habit.
Packed lunch consisted of biscuits and juice today – a welcome change from the heavy and greasy stuff.
We started off on the trek at 7am. The climb was steep. After an hour, we’d almost finished the complete “grass trek” and were about to begin trekking in snow. The Tamil Nadu team went first and waved their TVS flag for the cameras.
The trek to Sar Pass started. CIL was running a temperature and for the first time during this trek, he was actually trekking with me. He eventually caught up with SP and Rathore after the lunch break.
During lunch, SP and Rathore went up a hill and slid down all along the way. It was fun and I tried it too. Since I’d taken videos of them sliding down, I expected the favour to be returned. The first time I started sliding, apparently SP was not yet ready, so he didn’t even take a snap of me. And I thought that it was me who had to be ready for sliding, not the other way round!
Never mind, I went up the hill once more and slid down again. This time, he wasn’t ready again and only took a snap of me.
Scared that I’d not tolerate this once more, he asked me to make CIL take the video for my last attempt. I nicely showed him how to operate, how to zoom in and how to zoom out.. Mistake of my life. CIL zoomed right into my face at 48X while I was on top of the hill. By the time I started sliding down, I was out of the frame. And by the time he started to track me, I was at the bottom of the hill.. Lesson to be learnt : Never tell a novice to zoom in / zoom out while taking a video. That way, you atleast have the subject in the frame!
With my 3 efforts down the drain, I’d wasted my lunch time, and we started heading for the pass. A part of this journey was quite treacherous and scary. Some were walking as if they were on all fours. Cos any slip of the foot and you’d be a couple of hundred feet down the hill. And it’d take quite an effort to get back to the top.
We walked in a single file and crossed the pass. It was an exciting trek today.
After crossing the pass, we had to get down the mountain. And the shortest way to do this was to slide down. Wheeee….. A 100- 150ft slide down the hill along with our rucksacks!
We still had about 5km to reach the next camp. Climbing down puts a lot of pressure on the toes and knees and it took a couple of hours to reach Biskeri Thatch.
The group leader out waiting to welcome us. Since our clothes had soaked in all the snow and become wet, it was a fresh set of clothes today!!! Yaay.
We had hot soup and pakodas. Most of us were too tired to play anything involving physical activities today. So DC and mafia were ruled out. Mafia requires people to be sitting. Not sure what we did, but I think it was 20 questions.

May 17:
Biskeri – Bhandhak Thatch

With the main expedition completed, it was more a matter of having to finish the trek now. People got up leisurely, finished breakfast, got ready and packed up. With no particular goal/ aim anymore, we clicked pictures along the way, stopped here and there, and basically loafed our way to the next camp. We rappled (sort of) to get down a small 10ft cliff, crossed a wooden bridge (one of the many) over a river and sat down to have lunch. We spotted a huge brown bear which ran away when we started shouting, finished lunch, and continued.
Once we reached Bhandhak Thatch, another camping site in a beautiful meadow – some of our group members decided to leave straight to base camp. It would take another 3 hours of trek. But some of us decided to stay back and enjoy the camping site. The camp leader was a man from Maharashtra who was very cordial. He allowed us to play cricket inside the camp. Rathore, who was in the other team, was the umpire for the first innings, and he cheated like there was no tomorrow. Then our team we batted and won the match! Despite not having a cheat for an umpire anymore. Kudos to SP who stayed on the pitch from the first ball till the last. While the rest of the top order gave haath, I came to the team's rescue and did my bit to finish off the match along with SP. SP was the highest scorer with 1 wicket and 2 catches as well. A sweet victory it sure was!

We then played fire in the mountain. People were made to do stuff which they’d probably not have done in front of such an audience before. One noticeable difference today was that since our original group leader (Ashok) had decided to leave for base camp, Oratorji became our new group leader! This guy loves to give speeches at the drop of a hat. He advised us that since this was the last camp, each one of us should make it a point to say whatever we want, to whomever we want.
This night there was a campfire inside one of the tents. We played antakshari for a while. Once that got boring, we headed to our tent where we talked for sometime, shared a few jokes, and slept.

May 18:
Bhandhak – Manikaran – Kasol - Manali

This morning, we had noodles for breakfast. Something totally unexpected from a campsite. After this, Oratorji gave his customary speech, and having picked up our ID cards from him, we left for base camp.
After a 3 hour trek, we came to a huge, dusty quarry with hundreds of trucks moving granite out. From here we caught a bus to Manikaran which is famous for its hot water springs. We checked into a hotel where the hot water from the springs comes into a big tub. It has two inlets – one for hot water and one for cold water; and an outlet – for the dirty water.
We were nine of us, and we rented one room for 2 hours. The place looked slightly better than the Hotel Decent of Jab we Met fame. The bath was Rs. 15 per head and the room was for 80 bucks or so for the two hours.
We got into the pool – aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh….. Nothing had ever felt as good as a hot water bath after seven days!!! We were in ecstasy.
Cool drinks followed after the totally draining hot water bath.
We got ready, visited a few nearby temples, had lunch and caught a bus to Kasol at 4:30pm.
We picked up our luggage, packed our bags, picked up our expedition certificates and caught a bus to Manali.
Reached Manali by 9pm.
We then checked into a double “double” bed room. This was a big room with two double beds! It happens only in India. Hehe..
Even though we were in the mood for partying, nobody had the energy for it. So, crassh it was for today.

May 19:
After getting up, we realized that all roads beyond Rohtang pass were blocked due to heavy snowfall and landslides.
We went to a restaurant called German bakery where we had some amazing continental breakfast of eggs and toast and pizza and donut.
With nothing much to do now except probably go to Dharamsala or some other run-of-the-mill place, we dilly dallied about what to do. Rathore was getting bugged of mountains. SP suddenly wanted to attend an important meeting in office! CIL was anyway going home today.
We rescheduled our bus and flight tickets. Did shopping, bought shawls, sweaters, and a local topi! And then we bumped into the Karnataka gang. Had lunch with them.
All of us left Manali by bus that evening.

May 20:
Reached Delhi this morning. The weather here was 43 deg C. You can walk on the road and feel the hot air hitting your face.
We went to GK where NDTV lives. Got ready and had breakfast at his place. Had lunch at Pizza Hut in South Delhi.
Flight back to Bangalore.
Landed by 6pm.

Surprise #1: CIL’s dad was waiting for us at the airport!!

May 21:
Surprise #2: (In the office)
:O
“Thought you were coming back on Monday??!!!! How come you came so early?!”
Me: “Yea dude, change of plans”
Them: “How was the trip?”
Me: “Awesome man.. Wait till I blog about it.”