A strong call from Churdhar (Sirmour H.P.)

Tripoto
Day 1

I had heard a lot of times from my friends and other people about this place 'Churdhar', a mountain peak which lies in district Sirmour (H.P.) an eighteen Kilometers trek. I had a strong urge to visit this place.

There are two ways to reach the place one via district Solan to Nohradhar (base for the trek) in district Sirmour (18 Km trek to the peak from base) & other via Shimla to Chopal (base) from where it's about 7-8 Km trek but it's  a bit tough one.

On way to peak there is a famous temple of local deity Lord Shirgul (who is an avatar of lord Shiva i.e. Shiv Lingam). At the peak there is a statue of lord  Chureshwar (an avatar of lord Shiva).

So one day Nidhi (my friend who works in a bank) decided to visit the place with her bank colleagues. Thus she planned everything a month before and I was also ready for the trip. The day was decided  in such a way that it's conveinent for the working people also who were going to join us for this trip hence we chose second saturday & sunday for the trip. Every thing was going smooth untill I got the bad news i.e. my SBI PO exam that was scheduled to be held at exact sunday we had planned our trip.

Now I had to say no for the trip & Nidhi who is my bestie was highly pissed off & so as I. Neither we could postpone the trip as some of our friends from other states were going to join us nor Nidhi was happy enough to go without me.

So the day came, Nidhi & Nitika came to my place in Solan in the noon as they had to leave for Nohradhar at night  around 12 am and they had decided to stay at resthouse at Nohradhar & start their trekking early in the morning since it was an 18 Km trekking route and they had planned to reach at the peak on the same day. So I was just listening to their plans & feeling envious.

They were too enthusjastic for the trip. At moment there were 5-6 people who were ready for the trip then one of our friend Praveen called up to tell that there are two more people who will join them. After that our two friends from Jalandhar rang up to tell that 3 more people want to join us. Then one more friend  Aftab from Haryana told that two more will be joining. Likewise they got call after call and they all become from 5-6 to 14-15 people & on otherhand I was sitting aside holding a book.

But the enthusiasm and happiness for this trip on my friends' face twisted my mind and I left the idea of attending my exam on sunday & I told Nidhi that I think one more is going to join you for this trip and she screamed & started jumping out of joy.

Now we all were waiting for other people at our friend Satinder's place. & we decided to stay there and have some rest untill Aftab (a friend from Haryana) comes. He was late because he left for Solan after office hours and due to traffic and other reasons. So he arrived at 2 am . So we all had some rest and woke up at 5 am, though it didn't go as we planned but that was just fine.

At 6 am we started our journey to Nohradhar (base from where we had to start our trek).

But I had no regrets for skipping my exam instead I am sure i would have regretted if I had appeared for exam & skipped this trekking :) It was nothing but a strong call from the the mountains;  a call from Churdhar :)

In next part I will share our 18 Km trekking...pros & cons of this journey :)