The sleeping bag was the maximum leisure we had in this 7 days trek we got ourselves signed in with and this morning I woke up with the whole tent wet except for the sleeping bags, both dews and rains were making things both cold.
We started elevating towards the north of the village along with a few villagers who were on their way to work, collecting the woods for food and farming on their lands. In no time we had reached a point from where we could see the summit. The moment when we saw the summit I could feel the goosebumps all over my body, the mountain stand tall with a cap of snow and we were about to reach to the top in a few days.
The trail got steeper and steeper leading us into the woods, the paths were confusing as all seemed the same. The rains had made the ground slushy and a sudden shower made many of us panic a bit because of which many ended up in the slush and I remember getting my leg stuck in quicksand, they say when you trekking “Be as alert as you can else your next step can make you fall down the mountain”. I didn’t know they mean it before I experienced in by myself. I wasn’t falling off the mountain yet but the quicksand was no less.
Soon we reached the plain lands with heavy rains and were asked to enter our tent. The tents started dancing on the beats of wind but we were too tired to care. In no time we were asleep in our sleeping bags.
Soon as it stopped pouring we were served with snacks and later with soup. This campsite was different, a plain land in the middle of forest with no village and covered with mountains on all sides was in the middle of a sanctuary.
We saw the sunset and then sat for star gaze, the bonfire was on and people were tired with the trek. The next day started with a beautiful sight of sunrise and a motivating speech of trek guide. This trek was supposed to bring us closest to the summit to Nagaru.
Elevating the next day slowly and steadily we started to realise that our body had started giving up on us, the bags seemed heavier and the trail seemed harder when we realised that the tiredness of the body was mixed with lack of oxygen!
We, at last, were at 10000 ft. where the tree line, at last, had come to an end and the oxygen was limited, reducing the capability of the body and increasing the tiredness!
The gravels were loose making the trail both hard and risky, soon there was a whistle for lunch, I wasn’t hungry but I was craving for this break and the point where we took this was a place I didn’t wanna leave but had to, the elevation of 10000 ft. with no tree line visible we could see the mountains all around us and the clouds seemed under us, the chilling wind hit our faces which had turned red because of low temperature throughout, even today just the memory of that place gives me chills down the spine!
The trail went on, we struggling and shivering at last reached the top of the mountain where truly we were on the top of every and above us was only one thing and that was the summit, clearly visible giving us an inner motivation when suddenly that heavenly moment was interrupted with a notification on our cell phones and yes we couldn’t believe that at 10500 ft we had signals on mobile phones that we didn’t have throughout the trip!!
Everyone started calling and snapping and posting and chatting and whatnot, everyone was excited, 3 days and no conversation had made us crave for love and now getting it even for a few minutes was making us extremely happy!
The trek guide showed us through the base, we were served with dinner the earliest at 6:00 pm. The sun was down already and we were ordered to go to sleep as we were to start with our trail to summit at 3 in the morning! The day was tiring, the trek was coming to an end, we still had another night to stay at another camp but the next day we were to reach the summit, Sar Pass for which we were excited since the start and the feeling in our head then is unexplainable.
The night though turned out to be an evil about which I’ll be talking about in my next blog so stay tuned!
