Thursday, July 20, 2017

The Beas Kund Story...

The Beas Kund Story...


'There is no WiFi in the mountains, but i am sure you would find a better connection.' With every trek, the roots of this thought goes deeper and deeper in me. I don't know why but ever since i started trekking, the only thoughts in my mind are 'Where to go next?'. Beas Kund trek was my third trek and that too within an year of my first trek.

It all began in the month of March 2017 when a random conference call between me and 4 of my college buddies turned out to be a 'Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara' moment for us where all of us took a pledge that we would do something adventurous every year. And with that, i pitched with them the idea of trekking in the Himalayas which was accepted without any second thoughts. I did some research on the internet and found out that the Beas Kund trek would easily fit in with the number of days available with us. Finally we booked the Beas Kund trek in April 2017 and our trek dates were 13-15 May 2017. We booked the trek with Bikat Adventures as they are one of the best in this field and  the experience i had with my previous treks with them was fantastic.

We had booked the Himachal Pradesh government Volvo bus from Delhi to Manali. Our bus departed exactly at the scheduled departure time of 6 PM. The seats were comfortable keeping in mind the 14 hour long journey that was ahead of us. As usual, when your college friends meet, the fun is never ending. 


Volvo to Manali

We enjoyed the bus ride with the antakshari's and the dumb charades. By then we had reached Ambala. Our bus took a halt there for the dinner. When you are right at the doorway to Punjab, the only thing you would want to have is the delicious Shahi Paneer and Dal Makhani with the buttery Naan. 

Waiting for our dinner

And when you have all these super tasty and super heavy dinner, you are bound to doze off. This is what happened to us and we woke up the very next day when Manali was some 20 Kms away from us. The bus took exactly 13.5 hours from Delhi to reach Manali.

We reached Manali and rented a room near to the Mall Road to freshen up and have a bath. We reached the reporting point of our trek exactly at our reporting time of 10 AM and introduced ourselves. We got introduced to our Trek Leader named Virendra and our local guide named Sunil. The quick introduction was followed by a heavy breakfast of hot Aloo Paranthas and creamy Curd. Post the breakfast, we were taken to Solang Nala from where the trek would begin. Now this Solang Nala is a very beautiful and serene valley which is home to a number of adventure activities like paragliding and Trekking etc. The view of Solang Nala was amazing with the para-gliders enjoying up in the air.



Para-gliding in progress

We started trekking and reached a village called Dhundi by the afternoon. As soon as we reached Dhundi, it started raining and our trek leader decided to pitch our tents there itself. We learnt how to pitch the tents and pitched our own tents thereafter. We quickly went inside our tents as it was still pouring. The view from inside was breath taking. We had the 7 sisters mountain range right in front of our eyes. And as soon as we settled in, we were served hot and steaming Maggi noodles in our tents. The rain finally stopped pouring and everyone was out of their tent. We had hot tomato soup and went for an acclimatization walk a few hundred feet above our camping site. We collected pieces of wood during the walk in order to have a bonfire in the night. 



Our team collecting fire wood

As we returned from the walk, we had hot tea/coffee and Pasta as our evening snacks which was followed with an exercise session to relax the body muscles. With the bonfire lit up, everyone gathered around it for some fun games. We had our dinner at 8 PM which was a fantastic combination of delicious Dal, Roti, Mix Veg, Rice, Salad and the best of all, Halwa. We had our briefing session post the dinner where our trek leader informed to us that since ours was the first batch of the season to Beas Kund and the second camp site of Bakarthatch being packed with snow, we had to summit Beas Kund the next day itself. He also made it a point that all of us should get up at 5 in the morning and depart by 7 AM in order to complete the summit. With the thought of a challenging day ahead, we went to our tent and slept.

Relaxing in the tents.

The night view of the seven sisters

We woke up sharp at 5 AM and got ready for the challenging day ahead. Our trek leader ensured that we did yoga in the morning in order to be ready for the summit. We had our breakfast and collected the packed lunch from the kitchen staff and departed from our camp site. We had to cross the snow bridges at 3 places. The hike was fantastic with the scenery getting more beautiful with every step we moved. Finally, we reached Bakarthatch at 10:00 AM. Our local guide made it a point that if we reach Beas Kund by 12 PM, it would be the best, otherwise we would have to return from in between as the climate changes very rapidly in the mountains, especially after the noon time. With that fear of missing out on Beas Kund, we moved swiftly towards the summit.

 Our batch on the way to Beas Kund

The Beas River and the seven sisters

 Bakarthatch was full of snow and the view of the glacier was breathtaking. We slowly and gradually crossed the glacier and climbed the steepest of the trekking trails to Beas Kund. We took almost an hour to cross this steep stretch and finally, Beas Kund was only a few hundred meters away.

The glacier with Bakarthatch visible in the background


 Walking on the glacier

Finally we reached Beas Kund exactly at 12 PM. We were feeling ecstatic. It was drizzling and Beas Kund was in front of us. We took a lot of photos and selfies and had our lunch there at the summit. As it was drizzling, our trek leader and guide made sure we packed all our stuff and started the return journey soon as the weather might turn rough. 

Somewhere near Beas Kund

We started our return journey back to the base camp but all was not over yet. On the way, we played a lot in the snow and the feeling was amazing. On the way back, we found two girls from some other group stranded on the way. Our trek leader asked them if we could help and they asked if they could descend down to the base camp with us. Our trek leader readily agreed and we were on our way to the base camp again. On the way, while we were crossing the snow bridge, the bridge collapsed. We had to jump the river now to cross to the other side of the bridge. Finally after collecting dried wood from the forest for the bonfire and reached back to the base by 4 PM.

Walking on the snow bridge

As soon as we reached, our trek leader ensured that we did all the muscle relaxing exercises so that we would not suffer from cramps. After the energizer session, we had hot tea and coffee along with pakodas for snacks. This was followed with sweet corn soup and then the dinner. All of us together watched Bahubali 2 on the trek leader's tablet and Bluetooth speakers. After the movie we lit up the bonfire and shared our life experiences with each other. This was a very enjoyable moment.

The Bonfire 

The next morning we woke up a bit late at 7 PM and got ready for our departure back to Manali. We had an amazing breakfast and started trekking towards Solang Nala. We bid adieu to our kitchen and support staff who were very helpful. If these guys would not have been there, we would not have completed our trek successfully. We took some group photographs of the batch and left Dhundi for Solang Nala.

Our batch bidding adieu to Dhundi

We reached Manali by 1 PM and had our lunch. We relaxed in a hotel room and left for Delhi in the night. During the entire journey back to journey, we had only two thought in our minds. 

1. "Couldn't we stay in Dhundi for a few more days?".
2. Where next?

Credits:
- Bikat Adventures for my 3rd of many 'yet to be done' treks

2 comments:

  1. अच्छा लगा आपने beas kund trek के बारे में विस्तार से लिखा।

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's good that you describe your experience so well,it is very helpful.

    ReplyDelete