My favourite kind of trips are the ones which involve less extravaganza, but are highly memorable and with positive ROI (in any respect). Our 2021 December-end trek was an initialization of that model after a very very long pandemic break. Also this marked as a true travel vacation I took almost 1.5 years of working from home due to COVID-19. We, a team of 6 school friends trekked a Himalayan peak; and followed by the same I spent a few days at Delhi to meet new and old friends. The trek was very enjoyable for it was challenging and packed with new, invaluable experiences. The Delhi trip was successful for the fact that it gave me the opportunity to connect with some old college friends, meet up IRL with some new colleagues and spend some happy times with one of our very close family friend. The bonus points of the trip were the subtle facts that it gave me a fresh chance to re-invest into healthy activities, yet another chance to revive (and keep alive) old friendships and discover my country more.

My writing of this essay fulfils two purposes for me - one to vividly capture the details of the trek (our brains forget the details too soon) and second, a reminder and urge to improve my writing skills. And hopefully a few minutes of cheerful reading for the user! ;)

---

Day one

Our journey was of course a convergence, but involving divergences before and after. We started on twenty-forth of December 2021 from our homes to unite at Delhi.

• Me, Rohan, Mayank and Lahul travelled from Rishra (my hometown very close to Kolkata) to New Delhi by flight (Mayank had an earlier flight though and hence the first leg of the journey was not together)
• Agnivo travelled from Hyderabad (where he is currently employed) to New Delhi by flight
• Shubham travelled from Patna (his hometown) to New Delhi via train

Our team of six needs no introduction except Shubham. Me, Rohan, Mayank, Agnivo and Lahul are school-friends and have been knowing each other since childhood. Shubham (whose nickname is Katty) is a college friend of Rohan who joined us at his interest.

We reached New Delhi on time, and all of us except Katty met outside the airport (Agnivo’s flight was quite delayed though). We took an Uber to the spot (near Kashmere Gate bus stop) from where we were to catch the bus to Dehradun. Interesting fact to note is that the Uber driver gave us a very pleasurable tour by highlighting various important places in Delhi (of course the ones which fell on the route) and chit-chatting about politics, good and bad things about Delhi. Our sleeper bus was quite late in arrival as well as departure, and that gave us the chance to treat ourselves with bread-omlette and our brought-from-home-tiffins. The bus was not a very comfortable ride, but we got some stress-busting sleep.

Day two

The second day had an abrupt start (this is normal from past Chennai-Bangalore bus trips) by having to de-board the buses at destination with sleepy eyes, chilling cold and short notice. A van (which was organized by our guide) took us from the de-board point to the Dehradun ISBT. We had a quick breakfast (toast and omlette) at a local stall followed by cash collection (roads ahead were no-ATM). Interesting to note that all the Dehradun roadside stalls were accepting UPI as a payment method. We reached a designated spot where a Bolero car was waiting for us to be picked up. Our rucksacks were loaded on the car roof and we get set go. That was the first time we met Mani - our cook, mule (खच्चर) operator and serviceperson (from setting up campfire to presenting breakfast) throughout the trip.

We were to travel from Dehradun ISBT to Raithal (a village up the hills) through Uttar Kashi. The car journey was quite a long one (with multiple food breaks, a lot of music and sleepy eyes), but eventful. We met some other fellow travellers who were on the same route like us. The upward (and downward as well) journey proved yet again that mountain drivers have amazing control over the wheel. One thought that had kept us bothered is that our shoes were not yet ready¹. A fun fact was that while on lunch stop at Uttar Kashi, we, tired and long-withstanded from bathrooms, were in search of a restaurant which had an attached bathroom so that we could get fresh for the day before lunch. Luckily Hotel HillView Restaurant came to our rescue as well as had a delicious meal for us. So good the food, that we decided to eat at the same place in the return journey as well.

We also were able to conclude our shoe confusion at Uttar Kashi - unable to find the recommended Quechua Trek 100 shoes, we settled for ankle-high Snow shoes (locally called Kaplas). The shoes were very uncomfortable on non-snow surfaces, especially on flat cement but we had to have plan C to reject it.

We spent the night at a homestay at Raithal where we met our co-trekkers as well (a group of Bengali professors/teachers). We also met our guide Chandramohan ji² The mountains were very aesthetic from the homestay lobby and night was indeed very very chilling. Poor-network days had started from that night.

Day Trek Starts!

We started the day with some light breakfast and mental hotchpotch. Of course I had got my snow trekking boots, they were too difficult to walk with. I set out with Chandramohan ji in search of trekking shoes in the nearby market, but in vain. And there I decided, on the approval and confidence of Chandramohan ji, to trek with Crocs. Walking the stones and boulders and rocks were surprisingly easy with crocs, and that got me great speed. I was actually high on morale, and moderate on bagpack, so I had a great run on the first day. Boulders, edges of mountains, broken trees, high steps - we did it all.

We reached our destination for the day Neihata, a grassland valley somewhere in the middle of the Himalayas. The valley was lush green in the afternoon with some patches of snow here and there. The scenery was amazing to enjoy with the tea that was being served. This was going to be the first night (my first experience) we were going to stay in tents and sleep in sleeping bags. What seemed trivial in the afternoon soon became clearly exciting. There was a good amount of snowfall throughout the evening, that not only covered the greenery into snow white, but also dropped the temperature to almost zero. With such shivering cold and sun gone down, we found ourselves keeping closer to each other with torchlights (and headlights), alternating between rubbing our hands for warmth annd putting on the woolen gloves. There was also a small fire setup³ which became our hub of comfort, socializing and hearing amazing mountain stories. Post torchlit dinner, we spent a great deal of time chatting, laughing with Chandramohan ji and Vinod ji (our adjacent group’s guide).

Meanwhile I started practising wearing the snow boots while roaming around in the valley. Sleeping bags were a first-time experience for me - they weren’t comfortable, and to add to the discomfort, snow accumulated on the edges of the tent making the inner surface very very cold. Tents are generally wind-proof though.

Day four

Our penultimate stop was Chilapra. This was going to be our basecamp for Dayara peak, and our start of return journey. I set out uneasy in the snow boots. The day’s journey was overall smooth, we encountered patches of snow, but difficulty was still moderate. There were beautiful peaks and lakes and valleys as we passed through. All we could get from the day were some nice pictures and snow warm-up.

The stop we reached was even colder in terms of temperature, with lowest-felt touching around -9°C. The sky was crystal clear in the night and we had a nice time beside the fire. We saw interesting forms of life like an artificial lake at the spot - which mountaineers have crafted to make water storage and collection easy. We had the peak-climbing next day, and we geared up to that by going to sleep slightly early.

Day-ara peak

Chandramohan ji had already conveyed us of the trek start time as 7am for the day beforehand thereby plus-plusing the difficulty. One more point to note for the day was that we were to travel light and carry our tiffin boxes along. We of course didn’t knew in hindsight that the day’s climb would be the toughest of all, and the most satisfying and experience-rich. We arranged and secured our items into a single tent and set out. I was more confident with the shoes now, but the hardest part was yet to come.

This is the day we started getting ankle-deep snow. The road was long, but very very beautiful. We were walking along the edges of snow-covered mountains unlike the edges along the shrubs-and-rocks. Fresh-snow-filled paths are less risky than molten-snow paths. Again, snow paths are comparatively less riskier than pebble/rocky paths.

The ultimate peak-climbing was absolutely enthralling and humbling experience. I, along with my friend Rohan were more tired and were lagging behind. At the last portion, we took a shortcut and chose a more steep route. Chandramohan ji handheld us, and we climbed over the rocks through over 45° elevation. This was an amazing and satisfying experience. We spent some 20-25 mins on the peak, took photos and chilled with the other folks. Needless to say, we had to be very careful at those edges!

Our stop post-peak was Gui and it was a smooth way from the Dayara peak. We had an intermediate lunch stop, where we consumed our half-spoiled tiffins. Chilled Frooti felt heavenly. By the time we reached Gui, we were extremely tired, and spent a great deal of time lying still on the grasslands. We were wondering how the other teams had the energy to play football :).

Day six

Trek was at the finish line! Our descent had already begun, and our next stop was Raithal (yes!). We were at high josh, however the thought of again putting on snow boots was slightly an uneasy. I started with wearing those shoes, but after a quarter of the journey I put on my crocs and Sonic-ed my way through the mountains post that.

Before the journey, we took way too many group photos (including our co-trekkers).

I was able to descend very comfortably in crocs. With the very heavy snow boots hanging behind me on the sack (and occasionally kicking me), I made my way swiftly chatting with Chandramohan ji about mountains and life. I truly had a kickass descent 😆. We even met Mani on the way, the last time in our trek. We also met other fellow trekkers (on the way up, lazily on the way down), came across residents and mountaineers carrying eggs, wood above, mules making their way above clumsily. The last portion of the journey was quite comfortable as well, and we finally were back in the Raithal homestay from where we started.

We got ourselves some food from the local stores (yes, stores are back) and got refreshed. Bathroom availability was once again a thing :). We chatted around, packed our luggages and chilled for the rest of the day. Chandramohan ji and Vinod ji joined us for the evening party.