Kashmir Great Lakes : Day 2

You know what is the best thing I like about Himalayan trek? It is the waking hours. All your best efforts are required to move your ass out of the coziness of the sleeping bag and in a bent motion come out of your tent. But the moment you crane your neck out, the beauty and the bliss of the Himalayan range appears as if to remind you that you are truly in heaven.360 degree panoramic view of mountains, lovely Pine trees,Cool pleasant weather.

Amazing mountains

Vast meadows with horses grazing on them

Lush green meadows

This morning magic is coupled with the musical rhythm of the flowing river (as mostly the campsites are along the flowing rivers,streams or lakes.) and for the trekker like me the next best thing is to see the steaming kettle of tea sitting pretty in the middle of campsite and me enjoying the bliss of hot cup of tea

Waiting for the streaming tea to come out of that Kitchen Tent

Crash #$#%#* Puure Dream sequence ki phir se lag gayi , Pucho kyo because Bhaiyo woh chai pilane koi Ramu kaka nahi aane wale, Khud ko koshish karni hai, Yes to drink that tea I have to first take my cup wash it in the flowing river or the stored chilled water , Imagine the effect of thermal shock( I learnt this word from Amit). So the next thing is to brave the thermal shock of chilled water so as to fire up the intestinal furnace. Well thats how the day started for me today.

Oouch !! Bahut hi thanda hai pani

Technically today was the first day of actual trekking. All talks of yesterday evening of getting up early and leaving the camp by 7 was completely forgotten, Ab ek din me toh sab ko Milka Singh nahi bana sakte na ki aap subah jaldi utho aur bhag ne nikal pado, Time lagta hai Jaani !, saher ki aadat jaate jaate. First day, First show ke jalwe hi kuch aur hote hai , full  on commotions with activities like submission of document for Army verification, collection of packed lunch, O2 saturation test, Pulse check etc 

First Day First show ka commotion

Arre yaar kitna kaam hai , Trek karne aaya hu ya Hospital ward me baitha hu, But I understand yeh sab bhi zaoori tha.Somehow everyone pulled and pushed through to get ready followed by another round of explanation by the Trek leader Suman whereby we were informed to be ready for 3 hrs of climb, followed by decent through forest and then gradual plain walk. Total distance 9 kms.

Aa Dekhe Zaara, All set for Trek

Finally the trek started at 8.30 am with full on sunlight. Actually I would have hated this on any other day especially when you will be walking with 9 kg backpack on your back but today I almost welcomed the sun because I was given to understand that the previous batch had to negotiate the rains and that could be messy affair. Well as soon as we started to walk the lovely Sonmarg behind us lay in its full glory especially with the morning sunlight spreading its lovely rays.

 Trek starts with the gentle incline

The trek starts with the gentle incline , with amazing view all around that I could hardly keep my fingers away from my camera. Waise bhi me and my camera are inseparable

Amazing Views

Amazing Views

Its a common experience that whenever you start trek you are bumbling with energy , Always ready to give a pose perhaps I too was charged up so Ek pose toh banta hai bhai

Abhi pose maar ke hua nahi tha that I realised that the climb won't be so easy after all , what with the blazing sun above. Kashmir aur garmi, Hota hai Jaani , chote chote shehero me badi badi baate ho jati hai. 

Famous switch back of himalayan treks

Sweating in this sultry heat with the load of my bag and yet to keep a smiling face for the camera is a task.But like true warrior, On goes the brigade!. The first hour was through various Switch backs sometimes walking through the open meadows and some times through the tree shades.

Kabhi dhoop ,Kabhi Shade

One thing nice going for me was that due to the bus ride yesterday the ice breaking thing happened in the bus hence I now knew few guys well. Madhav and Vartika were the young couple from Pune It was there first trek and they like me was sold out for this trek due to lovely pictures. I liked the way Madhav kept encouraging Vartika to keep going.

Madhav and Vartika had good time encouraging each other 

This uphill kept going for an hour and half. Each one of us were trying to negotiate in our own way. Huffing , Panting but all the while keeping each other in good spirit. As far as I was concerned I skipped some switch back taking short cuts.

Everyone negotiating the climb in their own way

We were quite relieved when we were told that we are now near the Shekhdur camp,eaching Shekhdur means achieving an height of more than 11000 feets. Moving from 8000 feets to 11000 feets is indeed an achievement.(its a seperate matter that in mountains more than 1000 feets height gain is not recommended )  

Iconic tree just before the Shekhdur Camp

By the time we reached Shekdur , I was like Bas karo yaar , Tent idhar hi laga do,Chala ,Chala ke maar dala, Ab kya bache ki jaan loge kya , 

Bas karo Yaar, Ab bache ki jaan loge kya

Arre kambakto 3000 feet chada dala, woh bhi pahele din. Meri toh chodo I felt almost everyone crashed out. I still remember the expression on Santosh's face which seems to say kahan marwa diya. He just covered his face with the cap and went for a nap 

Vartika and Madhav too seemed like koi yaaro humko uthao. Seeing them like this ek khayal mere dil me aaya, Bacha Madhav tu toh mara Shaadi ki pehli anniversary aur tuh wife ko picnic bolkar trek per le aaya, Upar se chala chala ke torture kar raha hai. Later discussing this me and Vartika had good laugh.

Vartika and me sharing some lighter moments at Shekdur

We all rested here for sometime. In fact there is this small shop where one can have snacks like instant noodles, Buscuits, Cold drink and tea. Amit and santosh had noodles and ordered for tea. I remember talking to someone here , the person asked me "Chai kaisi hai", I said "Ok, Kuch Khaas nahi " he asked me"kitne ki hai " I said " 30 Rs" he said 30 Rs, Baap re. 
Meri shaitani Khopdi me phir ek khayal aaya and in the tradition of Om shanti om 
" Ek chutki sindoor ki kimat tum kya jano , Ramesh Babu ..
Mera dialogue tha "Ek chuski chai ki kimat in Pahado me tum kya  jano Ramesh Babu.

View of Shekdur

After enjoying the Tea and Rest It was again time to push ourselves forward.Believe me it takes lots of effort to start all over again. However luckily for us the trek was more of a gentle walk passing through the forest.The view of the forest was so romantic with sun playing hide and seek creating the aura of shadow and light.

Gentle incline towards the forest after Shekdur 

Shepherd homes en-route

Walk through the forest

Sunlight playing hide and seek

This walk through the forest was not only pleasant but also helped us to be protected from the tough Sun. What I liked about this part of the trek was that as soon as you come out of the forest trek you are staring at one of the most amazing view of mountain pass. For me it was indeed a dramatic moment and I almost cried out Wow !

This was a wow moment for me

My first experience at watching a pass

That was the view when I looked back

I am told that this is the start of Nichanai Pass.The moment we enter the valley we see small stream coming down it, At the far end where you see mountain peak well, that's where we have to go.

Valley View

but beware what looked like a small stream turns out to be big river kind of thing once you come closer.

 We all rested here and decided to have our lunch here,( we were given packed lunch of Roti and Aloo bhaji). River offered us a good opportunity to freshen up and feel rejuvenated .

Time to recharge our cells

The trek from here onwards in along this river , however one has to encountered small boulders and uneven rocky section. 

Walking along the river on rocky trail

 But once we cross this section the next scene is something I was waiting for, Yes Yo !! I see the first patch of Snow. Dil bole Zoom Zoom !!!

Yo ! Its s(h)nowtime now

My heart knew no joy when I saw the snow, First day into the trek and we are hitting snow patch.Wow ! Wow ! I am loving every moment of this trek.As I was prancing and dancing in the snow I heard Amit call out from top teasing me  "Aashish Bolo aur kitna snow chaiye , Aur chaiye toh bolo " and I was all like Thanks Amit for pushing me into this trek.

I simply love walking on the snow.

Snow bridge

Another thing I loved about this trek was the ever changing scenery, Hardly we had done with this snow patch that the route again opens up into another valley view, offering another wow moment for me and I shouted to myself "Abbe ab yeh kahan aaya gaya mai, OMG , mindblowing views hai "

Abbe yeh kahan aa gaya mai..... moment for me

By this time our feets were aching like hell, and the camp site was nowhere to be seen, over that not much help was coming through from Suman as regards to balance distance that we have to travel. Humari dukhti tango ke majje le raha hai aisa laga, Arre yaar ab bata de aur kitna chalna hai. Finally he said we are almost there, now that was a big relief and after walking for few more minutes I was happy to see the orange tents aur dil bola thank god aaj ke liye bach gaye.

At last'........Nichanai Camp site 

Campsites are like Oasis in the desert, Just when the body is all ready to give away the only sight that can save it is the view of campsite on the horizon. 

Nichnai camp site is again very pictureque, enveloped within mountains, with one side staring at the valley and usual river flowing along  

As soon as we reached Nachnai Camp, I ensured that we had a good round of stretching,Amit,Santosh, Rupinderji,and her 2 daughters, Rajesh,chinmay all joined in and it was fun. However the best part here was the circular massaging that we did with each one sitting behind the other and massaging the shoulder of the person ahead.Here a funny incident happened, as my shoulder was paining a lot due to the weight of the bag pack so Santosh was giving me shoulder massage, The pleasure of massage was so good that I was moaning in ecstasy without realising the same and the next moment I heard Santosh admonishing me  " Oye Dirty Picture style sound effect bund kar, Public dekhegi toh kya sochegi " I thought "kya sochagi, bolgi Shantaben"(Refer to Kal ho na ho movie agar nahi samja)

Evening shoot of Nichanai

It was late evening and Suman had called for the demo of  Installing and dismantling the tent. I was never a good student so deputed this part to Santosh. Jo jyada bolte hai woh akshar kum sunte hai , mera bhi kuch aisa case hai. Just as a true back bencher jo apni study books me comic rakh ke padta hai Me and Amit were busy capturing the beauty of the camp site

Beauty all around

It was a hard day for us today, 7 hrs climb , 3000 feet height gain, AMS ka pura chance, with these thoughts I retired to my tent for sleep.For me the night spent on this campsite was the longest as I was not able to sleep at all. All night I was wondering whether is it the altitude factor or whether is it due to exhaustion that I am unable to sleep. The moment I close my eyes I could see the mountains , rivers,snow floating around me. Amit was also not able to sleep so we decided to venture out in the open. Kuch nature call aur kuch nature walk aisa program bana, Santosh ko pucha toh woh bola pagal hai kya so jao, I think this night out in the open was sheer bliss, silence surrounding you except the gurgling sound of the river, silver-lined mountains under the canopy of stars , Oh what a sight to behold !

Starry Nights at Nichanai Campsite

Amit who knows little bit of stars explained to me , we had a brief chat out in the open, amit and me don't often meet or trek together but I have seen that our chemistry works, what I like about him his co-operative nature, sometimes I feel blessed to have him my tent mate,( I hope Amit yeh padkar bole nahi abbe ab rulayaga ka ), Honestly I enjoyed this night under the stars  and soon retired back to the tent knowing very well that tomorrow another challenging day awaits us.

Kal ki kal dekhte hai, Chalo Aaj ke liye
Good Night !!

In case if you missed on Day 1 given below is the link

Kashmir Great Lakes :Day 1

Kashmir Great Lakes Trek :Day One

Pic courtesy Balkrishna Damle 

"OMG! Not again ? "

now that was the reaction of my wife when I said that I am planning to do another trek to Himalayas. "Arre abhi toh Roopkund Trek kiya, aur kitne himalaya ke chakker lagane hai..aisa hi chalta raha toh ek din jogi ban jaoge...  Aur kitne baar jana hai Himalaya me " I smiled and said innocently "Jaan Kya baat karti ho abhi toh Everest baki hai " she had this bewildered expression on her face suggesting "Are you mad ? " and surprisingly she burst out laughing.

Thank God !! I hope she is getting used to my wandering ways.

It all started here .......Roopkund Trek 

My trek to Roopkund was an amazing experience but yet at the end of the trek I told my friend Amit "Boss ab no more himalayan treks for me, I m done" but he only smiled ( the kind which says chod na ...never say never again) and said "Kashmir Great Lakes kaisa rahega," I said " Amit sochna bhi nahi mai nahi aane wala aur please mere ko invite bhi nahi karna , you know how difficult it is for me to refuse ". Everything was forgotten and then one fine day I get this mail from Amit  full of lovely Kashmir Great lakes Pictures with a message. 

"Gotta think again buddy !! "

Just look at this Picture , Do you really need to think again !!

My instant reply was" Abbe isme sochna kya hai chal chalte hai, lekin dost ek hi problem hai Yaar is trek me snow nahi milegi , ab himalayan trek bhi kiya aur snow bhi nahi...kuch majja nahi aaya, lets do Rupin pass. " But in the end Amit sold this trek well to me saying look at the beauty, snow you can find in another trek also. Bas phir kya tha we were all set to go for Kashmir Great Lakes Trek.

Friends let me put the disclaimer at the beginning itself that this blog of mine will not make you any wiser in respect of the route or terrain gradient etc as it will only be touching upon the emotions that I underwent  during my journey on this trek if you are looking out for serious route map kind of thing Toh mere bhai Google kar lo you will get very detailed information, Mene toh yeh trek sirf enjoy kiya woh bhi pure dilse ,socha aap ko bhi wo hasin nazaaro ki kuch Jhalak dikha deta hu. Toh lets go"

Aap ko bhi wo hasin nazaaro ki kuch Jhalak dikha deta hu

Day One :

Srinagar Airport:

I was in Srinagar two days earlier then our scheduled arrival date hence was waiting for Amit,Santosh to join me on the scheduled date. Srinagar Airport is very nice but no less than a fortress, you see this military guys all around. There are nearly 5 checks before you board a flight. Here I would like to give a small travel tip. If you intend to catch a flight from Srinagar airport then better be there before that 2 hrs reporting thing because the checking and all takes a lots of time and there are lots of long queues.

Long Queue at Srinagar Airport for checking in

Please note that if you are coming by car, bus etc the drop will be till the airport however if you take auto then you will have to get down at the check point 1 km before the airport. Autos are not allowed till the airport. At this 1km check post your baggage is passed thru scanning machine , so if you are in say car you get down, get you and your baggage checked and again board your car to airport.People coming by autos may have to walk 1km from this check point,or shell out 50 bucks to the passing tourist car to drop at the airport or can always ply on a free bus service provided by the airport from this check point to airport. I personally found this bus service very unreliable so don't depend on it.

Free bus service till the outside gate

Anyways enough of Gyan, Lets move on to our main story. Overcoming all my hassles I dropped my wife and daughter at the Srinagar airport thereby switching my role from Tourist to Trekker. Waiting for over 2 hrs at the airport for Amit and Santosh was very tiring but I took this as an opportunity to talk to few travelers, Military guy ab time to pass karna tha na and also got myself clicked

Inteeha ho gayi , Intezaar ki..waiting for Amit and Santosh at Srinagar Airport

 Finally Amit arrived and I was happy ki chalo ab time pass ho jayega and before we knew anything hum logo ne milke pure Kashmir or India ki Geo-political problem discuss kar dali"  In the meanwhile the flights started to arrive and like a paging boys Amit and me stood at the arrival point and started speculating

Yeah ho sakta hai KGL india hikes ke liye ,

Nahi yeh hoga, Dekh he is carry trekking Pole, 

Ek do ko toh puch dala lekin mostly missed call.

          Is chakker me Santosh ko almost miss kar dala.

Before all this drama both of us had managed to find the Tempo Traveller guy and dumped our bags there, (later we came to know it was the wrong vehicle that is another story bolunga to blog nahi novel likhna padega, waise hi badnaam hu ki bolta bahut hu " So all said and done we herded all the sheeps..ooops! I mean co-trekkers together and did some self intro and as usual I tried to grab the window seat bachpan se pachpan tak yeh aadat jane wali nahi hai lagta, but before that Amit and me ensured that sab ke bags fata fut load kare  so that we can leave early and have good lunch on the way.

Sab ke bags fata fut load kar yaar bahut bhuk laagi hai

Guys generally I am never short of photos" lekin bukh itni lagi thi ki lunch ka photo lena bhool gaya per khana bahut mast tha Abb tension yeh tha  ki bahaar hamara driver hamare intezaar me pagaal ho raha tha " Actually we were not late it was his Roze ka side effect...Hunger. So we said sorry to him and nudged him to move on but he kept grumbling that it will be dark when reach, blah blah. "Ab maine aksar dekha hai ki aap jab rote ho toh tension badta hai..." As Murphy's Law defines that if anything will go wrong it will, Bas hogaya panga ! for the grumbling driver, Saamne se policewale ne haat diye and next scene all of you know kya ho sakta hai...akhir me Indian traffic police ki habit toh all over India common hai na, Bhale hum Kashmir me hai toh kya.Corrupt Kanoon ke hath lambe hote hai bhai. Somehow the driver managed the policewala and with anger written on his face all over sat on the driver seat.

Yeh sab dekh kar mere Dil me ek thought aaya...

Pareshaan driver and Phadi Rasta are not good combination" 

But thankfully rest of the journey was peaceful, I wanted to pee very badly but just imagining the internal valcano temperature of the driver I some how managed to keep the throttle shut, though this action of mine did curb my natural exuberance and I excitedly but in a mute mode kept watching out of the window as new scenery one after the other kept unfolding before me.

Our Bus crossing the river  on the way to sonmarg

Lush green fields,Pine trees,and Mountains in backdrop makes it complete wallpaper stuff

How I wish I was staying in one of those houses

Aaha what lovely houses, Arre bus wale zara rok na please

Road ahead reminding beta abhi rasta baaki hai

It's India...hard to believe

Lovely Sind river flowing along the way

Seeing this picture of Sind River I remembered that here I took come courage and requested the driver " Dost bahut zoor se su su aayi hai please 2 minute bus rok do", He said "Ok par jaldi karna"  I seriously wanted to ask him "Ab yeh bhi koi time pass karne ke liye karta hai kya" 

"Actually susu toh ek bahana tha,
 Mujko toh sirf sind nadi per photo khicana tha") 

Then what, I leapt out of the bus did the jig quickly and before anything could be done ran across the road took few photos and called out Santosh and told him to take my picture on the rock, meanwhile rest of the gang also jumped out and we all enjoyed the photo session.
Zindagi ki yeah choti choti khushiya yaad karo toh kitne aachi lagti hai. 
Isi liye kehta hu in chote chote pal ko jodkar ek kubsurat zindagi kyo na banale

The picture below will give the perfect idea of the bliss that a person can feel after good pee, Photo on the rock !!

 susu toh ek bahana tha, Mujko toh sirf sind nadi per photo khicana tha 

After this extempore short break we all returned back in the bus, surprisingly the Pareshaan Driver was cool about the whole thing, I later realised this, when we reached near the base village quickly in 15 minutes. Aacha , baacha hum ko poopat banaya...raat ho jayegi and all . Anyways the moment I got down from the bus at the base which is 3-4 kms before Sonmarg the first word that came out of my mouth was wow and believe me the mouth was open so big ki Tirupati mandir ka Jumbo laddu bhi aaram se fit ho jata.

Wow!!! I screamed

  

I am Zapped

Yes I was zapped by the beauty and hummed Aagaz yeah hai toh anjaam ho ga haaseen.I was hardly able to grasp this beauty that Amit nudged me "Aashish  jo samaan upar chadhya hai utaarega nahi kya" For a second I wanted to scream at him "saala sub mera dream sequence tod diya, Yeh haseen wadiya yeh khula aasmaan, Kuch der pehle feel kar raha tha Kamaal,Kamaal ab bana diya na Hamaal, Hamaa "

Kamaal kamaal se Hamaal Hamaal

After unloading the entire baggage we were ready for the onward climb of approx 700 mtrs to the Base Camp. How I wished that the bus guy would have come little higher, "yeh parade bach jati,per socha chalo let us treat this as warm up. It was heartening to see Vishwasji and Pradipji come to welcome us. I as usual did lose the opportunity to get us clicked

Ek photo sir,
per landscape lena, peeche ka mountain aana chaiye

So much for my fetish for photos, but in this fun and game we reached the Base camp. We dumped our bag and the backpack and looked around in awe at the beauty of the nature. In the meanwhile We got introduced to our new Tormentor oops sorry, Trek Leader Suman.

Me and my Our Trek Leader Suman

As usual we made a circle formation, Suman was ready with his life's longest lecture I presume, He started out to explain the do and donts, then in depth explanation of AMS, " Boss ki explanation ne itna dara diya ki mere ko 8000 feet per bhi AMS ka ahsaas shuru ho gaya , Kya karu thoda emotional jyada hu na scene me fit ho jata hu" I can very well understand this anxiety to make everyone aware of AMS (High Altitude sickness) because of the tragedy on the Roopkund Trek where a young guy lost his life. 

After this we had introduction round, By this time the light was fading very fast and it was getting cold too.we took a small break and reassemble for Introductions. It was very dark where we could hardly make out who is who, waise bhi 32 members ko ek din me yaad rakna mushkil hai. Ritual hai karna toh padega .

Darkness se ek thought aaya tha mere dil me woh time, Agar is andhere me mai bolu mai Amithab Bachan bol raha hoon toh I would have got away with it despite my small height and if there would have been a Wi fi connectivity at the base camp who knows next moment a FB update would have been posted Yipees hey Amitji is trekking with us in Himalayas ab aur kya chaiye FB hungry guys ko and you will start getting oooh.aawee, awesome,great comments and in no time more than 500 likes. Bechare Amitji apne Pratiksha Bungale me baith kar soch rahe honge Yaar yeh mai Himalaya kaise pahunch gaya"   

( I hope now you know How I keep myself busy, crazy mind, crazy thoughts)

Honestly that night reflecting over this talk on AMS and forewarning of never ending long walks ahead for days to come,I was like Chalo yaar scenery toh yahan bhi aachi nai, I'll spend few days in Sonmarg, Nadi kinare thodi fishing kar loonga, snow bhi dikh rahi hai, choda yaar nahi marna AMS se, Please move on Mai yahan hi aacha"

But as they say na Raat gayi Baat gayi...Tomorrow is another day

Looking Forward toward the next day

To be continued ( depending if I have the energy )

Link to next partKashmir Great Lakes : Day 2