Men Vs Wild - Nag Tibba Trek!

Tripoto
28th Sep 2019
Photo of Men Vs Wild - Nag Tibba Trek! by Aditya Jain

Fascinated by mythological stories since childhood, there was a soft place of this unknown euphoria in my mind. The Indian deities, known as the Trimurti - Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva are somehow related to every individual one or another; be it grandma childhood stories or the dread we face before doing a bad deed. However, Lord shiva, the destroyer was somehow intimating then others and this fascination led me to this trek. Also, they say ‘Nags’ are ornament of lord shiva.

Luckily, Nag tibba which is couple hours from Dehradun has this great trek which is yet untouched by tourism and has preserved its flora and fauna. It is also known as the serpeants peak, situated in the lower Himalayan area of garhwal region, approximately 3050 metre above the sea level.

Pantwari – Nag tibba

We were 5 friends and decided to do the trek as raw as possible. I am gonna try to keep it short, just to give you an idea of what it really is. So we began our journey in a 4 Wheel Vehicle from the footsteps of ‘Queen of hills’ – Mussorrie.

We started at 5:30 in the morning just to avoid weekend traffic in Dehradun. It was a green drive till Pantwari which is the starting point to begin this trek. In pantwari, we ditched our vehicle and prepared our bags to begin with. Not just sleeping bag and tent, we managed to take fire wood and water right from the beginning of the trek, Some chocolates to munch and a whole lot of enthusiasm.

It was a bright sunny day, and the chirping of birds was audible. Grass felt greener and there was a chill in the wind. The soft sunlight falling through the canopy, allowing little particles of dust to be seen. Despite of bags weighing 20-25 kg, for next few hours it was us running past the wood with a steady pace. In the remoteness of forest, we saw a fox right above the slope. We decided to while away this moment and carefully tried to sneak aside from the fox. However it was a futile attempt which we got to know at night. Poor us!

Hours later we found 1-2 locals and that is when we got to know we have reached the base camp. And the unpacking started, everyone was assigned a task. If one has to fetch fresh water a mile away from the pond, other has to collect dry wood stock for fire. Remaining pals were setting up the camp. It is advisor to put weapons with yourself while on jungle hike. We were clever enough to put 2-3 long blades with us just in case of wild encounter.

We set up the fire 1 km away from the camp with a feeble ray of hope to avoid grizzly bears which could smell the food from miles away.

The days are small on mountains and soon it was dark. So we tried to sleep amidst the excitement of what tomorrow holds. At 2:00 a.m. there was a sudden brushing of paws on the outermost layer of my tent. My friend who is a Garhwali local managed to make a scary sound to scare the heck out of that animal. Maybe it was that fox who chased us. We spent the night with a shiver in our body and utmost silence.

The sound of snow flakes falling on our tent woke us up at 5:30 a.m. Mesmerized by the beauty and what we were witnessing, it was a moment to get awestruck.

The calm of the forest, the view of the range, mist on the trees was no less than a showcase. It was something majestic.

Just go out there in the remote forest and explore the trails and you won’t regret it.