Happy Trails To You!

"Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go” – A quote that suits me so beautifully well. Before I want to write about my winter trek, I would proudly want to call this a personal achievement. Why? Because for someone who cannot really bear the Bengaluru winters ..well Kedarkantha was no less than a life challenge. With not even a second of skin to be exposed to air, I survived India’s most favorite winter trek.

Yes, this trek was as exciting as it sounds from my first paragraph! This was a surprise trek planned. Many came into the plan but had to drop out in between for various reasons. But still – We made it!! With initial advance booking of the trek via Thrillophia, we were promised that the trek group will consists of 18-20 people. But can you guess the number of people of our group? 105 it was. Oh yes, this was just one of our group with this number and there were atleast 20 groups more with similar numbers everyday. Yes, that was how the trail looked – just like a fair!

Our journey from Namma Bengaluru began on 25^th Dec’21. We boarded Air Asia flight towards New Delhi @12:05AM. Mind you – NEVER OPT FOR THIS FLIGHT. So we flew from 19 degrees to around 9 degrees at New Delhi at 3AM. We were first ones to exit from our flight as we had a train to tale to Dehradun at 6.45AM. Now comes the twist. After most of the passengers had left from the airport with their bags, I was informed that my bag was not in our flight and would be reaching New Delhi only at 9AM in the next flight. Wow! Now for someone who has anxiety issues, this came as a blow so severe that I was blank for one straight minute and did not know how to process the information! So out of 300bags, apparently 3 of our bags were the unfortunate ones that could not be picked by the airlines. Hence we sat there for whole of 6 hours, praying that the bag does come in the next flight. And by His Grace, my bag did arrive at 9.30 in the next flight. And the best part was – There was no security issue with the bag, the officer in charge just apologized that they could not load the bag on time into the flight! Wow.. Such an excuse!

As the start was so negative, we were skeptical as to what would happen next. We had to make it to Dehradun by late evening as our trek journey was due to start early on 26^th Dec. Therefore, considering safety and other aspects, we opted to go via Ola outstation from New Delhi to Dehradun. We started by 11AM and made it to Dehradun by 5PM. Uff. This was such a relief. After having freshened up, we took a short tour around the town and called it an early night.

Next morning, we reached our pickup point near the Dehradun railway station. We took a sharing auto which costed us 30rs each from our stay at the hostel. Our operator assigned was TrekUp India. We were shocked to find 2 big buses and 2-3 cars waiting for pick up. So we were close to 200 people who were to start trek to Kedarkantha! This was the first major surprise.

With the seats so strangely small, all of us made an effort to just sit 3 in a row in the bus. The journey began at about 7.30 in the morning. We stopped for breakfast at Mussoorie. Here is where we got slowly got acquainted to a lot of fellow travelers. The view from the hill station itself was so breathtaking and we are all super excited to our next destination. We then continued until lunch break – the stop was very pathetic as the kitchen was so small as to accommodate max 6-7 people and with 100 passengers budging in for food, the situation was really sad. However, the food was damn delicious and after about one and a half hour, all of us were full. We then continued the long unending journey and then reached our basecamp Sankri around 8PM.

We got settled into the basecamp. TrekUp India has this strict policy of having the stay separate for men and women – even for family. So after dinner, we were informed about the next 4 days plan. We were informed that the weather prediction for the next 4 days was going to be extremely bad and summit might just be a dream. Therefore, not to keep any hopes about the same. The trek lead said, it is only each of your prayers that can make your summit a successful one. Now this was another major shocker as all of us felt so hopeless in the cold and more than the cold, what hit us was – Should we really even start the trek next day?

Next morning by 9 we were allowed to roam the market and get our rentals for the trek. Yes, at Sankri, there are lots of stores where we can purchase/rent our hiking wear and equipment's.  So in the next hour all of us were set to begin our trek towards our second basecamp.

The start of the trek itself was so beautiful with deep valleys on our left. We realized there were 1000 others with us who had the same goal. All along the way, there was refreshments available. The Winter Wonderland was just making itself begin. A lot of new friendship blossomed. Chaitra, Abhishek, Jagadish, Anushka – her parents, Sourabh, Pradeep., to name a few; We shared stories, chocolates, dry fruits and continued our way up. Towards the end of just reaching Juda-Ka-Talab, there was snowfall and this moment was just magical! I had tears as I could not believe I was living the dream trek. My friend made sure, I have a cup of tea to just enjoy this moment. I cannot thank him enough.

We then reached the first campsite at Juda-Ka-Talab. This place has a special significance of Lord Shiva. We had nice hot lunch here and were assigned to tents - 3 in 1 stay. So we three girls settled in and then changed to our thermals and stepped out. Few of us started singing and then many joined and then it turned into dance. We had super fun dancing to our favorite songs and then retired into our tents as the temperature further dipped. We shared stories and had good amount of chat wherein we all got closer. Then after dinner we retired to sleep.

While waking up in the morning, we realized that ice had formed inside of our tents and our sleeping bags were all damp with the snow. This was a new learning and experience. Even drinking water had turned into ice.  After having enjoyed beautiful sunrise at the lake, we proceeded towards our next campsite which was hardly an hour’s trek. The trail was so beautiful! But to make it to the campsite was so perilous! The dangerously thin and slippery trail made it difficult for us to walk without spikes on the snow. However, we made it to the Kedarkantha basecamp. The dream camp which was one of our primary destinations. We slide, we had a snowman and we got introduced to our spikes here. After having made few reels, we had an early dinner as we had to start for the summit at 3 in the morning!

So at 12, we hear people shouting that it has started to snow. As I dreaded for such news, I tried my best to force shut my eyes and be deaf to the commotion outside my tent. Then at 2AM when I woke up, I could still see it snowing. I did not have the courage to accept that we might have to cancel the summit as we kept getting negative feedback from the past 2 days from fellow trekkers who had summited. With a lot of willpower, I got ready and stepped out my tent by 2.15..ready for the summit. Thankfully, the snow was not much and by 3AM it had almost stopped snowing. We then started our finaly journey towards the summit at 3AM. With a lot of josh, a lot of prayers, a lot lot of cold and a lot lot of people with our torchlights on our forehead, we began our day. The initial train was definitely steep and challenging and our trek lead said that it would just get more worse.

After having reached the first point around 4.20AM, we waited for our fellow trekkers. We then began the last stretch of ascend at around 5.10AM. Since there were close to 700-800 others were already walking their way up, for me the trail was not so challenging except for the crowd. Lot of support, lot of “Har Har Mahadev”s and  a lot of encouragement from my best friend made me be the first girl from our batch to make it to the peak at 6.30AM. We were hardly 30-40 of us at the summit at 6.30AM in the morning.

The summit is something which words or photos cannot really do any justice. The peace and accomplishment that I felt there at the peak is something eternal. I could not really believe it we all made it to the summit. The weather must have been around -15degrees. The sun finally rose around 7.10AM. With tears and a heart full of contentment I was so so proud of achieving this feat! I was so proud of every person at the summit! WE MADE IT!

he descent back to base camp was super fun. We did not walk the way down. We just slide through the snow with absolutely no braking mechanism and trek poles broken! OMG! That experience was so crazy and awesome. With the “pahadon wali maggi”, we made it back to the basecamp.

We had to move towards our last basecamp at Hargoan. This was one of the hidden and most beautiful trail of the whole trek. We had to walk almost 4 hours, but it was so much fun. I fell in the snow almost thrice and all the times was just laughing at what was happening. Every scenic beauty around was no less than anything watched in Hollywood movies – which means I felt like I was at Switzerland and so many other cold countries which I always longed to visit.

 I cannot thank God and my stars enough for making me mentally and physically prepared for this trek. Also my super supportive parents. Mom is my rock  I really cannot withstand little cold so I was preparing for this trek for almost 2.5 months and it was all worth it. I would like to specially thank my friend Paveen for being so co-operative and supportive throughout the trek. Making it to the summit was definitely possible for me – I know. But being the first girl to reach there and on-time for sunrise was possible ONLY cause of you else I would have gone at my own sweet pace. (Even though I told you I can see two moons and freaked you out, you kept pushing me!)

The next day, we descended towards Sankri basecamp again. Returned our rentals and had a sumptuous lunch. As per plan, we were to start back to Dehradun the next day. But since we all wanted to go back on the same day, buses were arranged for us and we departed from Sankri at around 4.30PM and reached Dehradun by 1AM. The journey was very very chilly and hence extremely tiring and bad.

To Thrillophilia and TrekUp India – though I had bitter sweet experience with the trek, you had the most beautiful campsites. Truly breathtaking beauty all way and such beautiful trails that one could wish for. To the local trek guides that asked me – “Aap slide karogi?” and without a second thought I was playing in snow for the whole morning! A heartfelt thank you!

To the entire trekking group – I have not spoken to all 105 of you, but I have definitely gotten close to 15 few who I know made a different trek experience for me. A big thank you for being such a great team. This trek would not have been such a nice one without any of you!

To all of you who enjoyed reading this – if you are also wishing to start trekking.. it is never too late. Talk around and plan for a trek, even if you are solo. Mountains teach you a lot of things and you will come back a better person. That is what mountains do to you! To all those who think cold is not your thing – trust me, if you have layered up well, winter trek is not impossible.

Kedarkantha like people always claim – India’s most loved winter trek. It definitely is. This was my second Himalayan trek and definitely this was my favorite. So plan your travel, book your tickets, tighten your shoes and get set to your next trek!!