Day 5: Start of the trekking-
In the morning next day we went to a temple in Auli and then
had our breakfast at GMVN. At around 11 Am we started trekking. We were given
rubber shoes to walk on snow and Laxmi got a new yellow coloured trouser. With
the shoes, trousers and his party wear shirt he was looking a complete joker. We
started trekking in snow and due to the strong reflection of sunlight it was
impossible to see anything without sunglasses. On the way our guide told us
about various dried out flowers and herbs and the beauty of the valley in
summer season. He also narrated an incident where a person lost his eyesight
during an expedition when his sunglass got broken and he had to spent 4 days
without glasses in snow. We made our camp on a patch of land amidst snow in
Gurso Bugyal. The guide used the vacant army camp nearby as the kitchen. We had
lunch and took some rest. In the evening we went up the hill on snow to watch
sunset. The top gave a wonderful view of the mountains with snow all around. We
took many photographs there. I carved out my mother's name on the snow there. After
that we slided and rolled down from the top again and again. It was one of the
most awesome evenings we spent there. Cold winds started blowing as the sun set
and we came back to our tents. We then enjoyed the camp fire with music from my
phone, had dinner and slept after a tiring day. Our guide was awesome, we even didn’t
have to wash our plates.
Day 6: Holi at 4200 metres-
We woke up at 6am, completed our daily activities and had
breakfast. In the breakfast cook by mistake added red chilly sauce instead of
tomato sauce in the sandwich making a rare combo. We packed the tents and left
around 8am. With heavy bags it was difficult to move, as with more weight the
foot sunk deeper in snow. I was in great problems because I was the one who was
carrying the entire waste luggage because of the new big trekking bag, which I
bought recently. But slowly we kept on moving. As we moved up the view of
mountains became good. We took rest after each 20 minutes of climb on a patch
of land free from snow. We made zigzag routes following the top. Finally came
the steepest of the slope. I wanted to be at the top first so went ahead of the
Guide himself and took a wrong direction. The snow was melting on that side and
on each step I could sink upto 3 feets in snow. I even slipped four times. Thanks
to my hands else I would have gone straight 200 metres below. Finally using all
the four hands and legs and crawling like an animal I reached near the guide
who was moving up some 25 feet left of me. After 4 hours of continuous trekking
we reached the top. We observed a rare phenomenon there- a circular rainbow
around the sun. We took some refreshments at the top. From the top I got to
view one of the best natural sceneries covering the peaks of Nanda Devi,Trishul
range,Kamet, the nearby villages Auli,Tapovan and Dhak.We met some guys from
the other IITK group there. After around half an hour of sightseeing and
Sravan's Photography we started descending down.
We thought that going down on
snow would be easier. It was for sure but more adventurous and risky. We slided
on the slope. At some places slope was to steep and if we had made a mistake we
would have landed directly into a valley 1000m below. On this side of the
mountain the stretch of snow was less as it faced the sun. Then we moved down
on the rocky slope, stopped at one place had lunch and started walking again. By
the time the other group had come back and we walked with them to their camp. They
offered us some tea. We changed our shoes from the rubber ones to our regular
sports shoes which were more comfortable. Seeing us doing this our Guide also
changed his shoes. Now we were able to move faster. We passed through some
villages, saw the terrace farming of wheat. The plants covered the whole hill slope
and the greenery looked awesome. After around a total of 16km of trekking on
this day we reached the road near Dhak village. A car was waiting for us which
took us to Tapovan,a place of hot streams. We went down there for a bath. The
water there was 60 to 70 degree c hot and people were easily bathing in it. With
lot of courage we also put our heads in the stream of hot water.The bath
removed all our tiredness.From there we came back to Joshimath, bid goodbye to
our Guide and went to our room.
Day 7: The Ganga Aarti(Haridwar)-
We took a bus to Haridwar from Joshimath at 6 am. The way
back is always boring and we passed the long journey sleeping and listening to
music. We reached Haridwar at 4Pm,had some food and went to Har Ki Pauri. There
was a huge crowd of devotees, with banks full of people bathing in Ganga. The
flow of water there is great. We also took a bath in the cold waters and then
went to attend the aarti which had just started. The aarti starts daily at around
6.30 pm and a crowd of more than thousand attend it. At first I saw a great
discipline in the crowd. The Pandit was reciting some mantras and the people
nearest to the Ghat were sitting and the people at the back were standing according
to their heights so that everyone can watch the proceedings. But as soon as the
main aarti started this discipline vanished all of a sudden and everyone stood
up pushing each other and fighting. Pujari asked everyone to take a pledge for
not polluting Ganga and all of them repeated the pledge words after him. But as
soon as the aarti ended most of them put flowers and burning diyas in the holy
river. And not to mention about bathing as we also did that. Sometimes faith overpowers
reason and you can't do anything about it. The smoke of the aartis soon filled
the air. One interesting thing I noticed about the Aarti was the way people saw
it. Earlier during aartis people clapped and sung it along but now I could see
people busy in recording videos and clicking pictures. Almost half of the crowd
had some camera in their hands. Its really difficult to differentiate between
devotees and tourists of modern India. After the aarti we roamed around in the
nearby market and then went to the railway station. Fortunately the train was
on time and we returned back.
Photographs by- Sravan Photography
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