WARWAN: A PERFECT CROSSOVER
Days without any calls from the hospitals, anxious parents of their unwell kids,my receptionists,my staff at my farm and spam calls from loan providers, & just-dial. No messages of pending electricity bill and Jio-fibre. No WhatsApp chats. No mails wanted& unwanted. No electricity. No newspapers....though hardly anyone reads nowadays. 7pm dinner and 8pm bedtime (without bed obviously ) Washing our plates with ice cold water. Sleeping in a tent, getting inside the sleeping bags and adjusting the position (prone, supine &laterals with great difficulty. At the stroke of midnight..... sometimes later, getting outside the tent in a sub-zero setting to answer the call of nature and returning to the tent &following the same procedure again. 6-7-8 are the timings for wakeup tea, breakfast and start. No bath ,no shave, not changing the clothes many a times and sometimes no brushing. During the whole day we climb,get down,cross the river,fill our water bottles,cross the valleys, manoeuvre the tricky traverse, balancing on the boulders, scraping past the scree & morains, braving the rains,winds and snow keeping our stamina intact and positivity at optimum. Summiting the pass and desparately looking out for the campsite after a long day. Life is difficult on the high altitude and we live life of a nomads and 'Bakarwalas'. But there are no regrets. What we get in return is unparalleled and can't explain in words and that's the reason I along with my group wait with eager every year to experience the youngest mountain of the world...... Himalayas.
SHURUVAAT
50 years of existence on this planet and half of it have gone exploring various places in the Himalayas and I am truly blessed on that count. In our group, all my friends are of my age and we really wanted something different, something grand this year as far our trek was concerned with aim to celebrate our half century. Couple of years ago we did Bodpathri trek in Kashmir and were floored by the sheer beauty of trekking in this part of the world. This year,we all unanimously decided to do Warwan valley trek in Kashmir, which was just recently been documented. This was the region in Kashmir where even a Kashmiri was oblivion about it. Difficult category trek,a crossover, from desert to meadows covering almost 90 kms in 7 days of hard trek with one buffer day for acclimatisation. We opted for the season ending batch as it was just after Ganpati visarjan. This was the tough trek and one required optimum preparation & to be very honest, my preparation for the trek happened by playing Lezim at my colony Ganpati festival, nonstop for 70 mins just 72 hours before flying.
DESERT ROSE
After a 4 days of fantabulous road trip from Chandigarh to Manali and then to Zanskar valley till our basecamp. We, 4 of us,were all acclimatised well by then, arrived in a small village called Panikhar around 60kms before Kargil. Camping was next to the nulla by the name of the village. From hotel room to tent our transition was quite smooth. Meeting my fellow trekkers and taking a stroll in the village with a small school nearby where kids were learning to sing the national anthem. Few locals asking us 'Kahaa se Aaye Ho'?. This was a lengthy trek and every day we had a packed lunch so the first day of the trek was level walk with few ascends. After frequent hydration breaks the monotony was broken by a fast flowing river water falling from a height as if it's a waterfall kinda like and we had to cross this. This was the first of many such water bodies we were going to cross in coming days. Tasty Pulav filled our hungry stomachs and our souls were filled by the ambience. Having lunch just next to the falling water with mountains all around. We were blessed and this blessing we got every day of week long trek. The landscape changed and the valley widened and the river forked in the multiples to form a delta system. Our speed slowed as we could see our campsite at a distance. A fast flowing wide river with ice cold waters was between us and the campsite. So the adventure began of crossing the waist high waters and this was tiring and thrilling as the pass crossing. With the help of our pony men we crossed this river finally reaching our tents barefooted.This was Denora at 12500 ft and we had trekked almost 17 kms. It was 5pm and very cloudy. Sky was not clear at night too.The only night we didn't see the Milky way.
OPTIMISM
It started with a drizzle but poured heavily as night passed and my pessimism clouded my mind. I was damn sure that trek would be cancelled and it gave nightmares of crossing the river again which would be chest high if at all we needed to return. 7am I got out my tent only to learn that the trek is ON and thus were our spirits. Snowfall had occurred on the top of the surrounding mountains and we were in Heaven....no exaggeration. In 60 odd mins,we packed our sacks, finished our rituals,ate our breakfast and stretched ourselves for the summit. Yes! It was a summit just on the second day. Clouds and chill accompanied us as we ascended towards the base of Kalapari peak. Hydration break after one hour and steep ascent followed and in another hour we reached a place I would proudly say that it was one of the highlight of this trek. A high altitude alpine lake surrounded by peaks and their glaciers with pieces of the glacier interspersed in the green waters. It was a sight straight from Artic or Antartica. We were provided with hot cup of tea as a compliment. With lots of photo-shoot we started for something serious, dangerous and thrilling. Crossing the lake at its entire length on the right side with a slippery boulder-scree section getting down on the huge glacier with multiple crevices crossing it only to reach another glacier. After almost 90 odd minutes of non-stop traversing we reached the ridge. Hydration break and loud thud took our eyes to adjacent peak where avalanche occured. Nature was showing and showering with all its elements every now and then. A hard ridge climb in flat 30 mins and we were at the summit, the Lomvilad pass at 14400 ft. Extreme wind forced us to start our descend on other side little early with another beautiful lake,the Kalapari-2 welcomed us with its splendor. A long glacier walk again took us to the boulder section and out came in front of us another nature's miracle. A huge huge.... Bracken glacier and just adjacent to it was our campsite.....Pinji.
BULLDOZER
During dinner time Gulzar,our trek leader mentioned about the campsite of Pinji,it's location and it's disadvantages in relation with the climate. It was a clear skies during dawn and as we started streching snowfall started.....all of a sudden and within no time the intensity increased and in moments the campsite boar white colour. Hurriedly we started descending onto the Bracken glacier. The descent was too tough as 85 degree slope on a scree filled with snow with active snowfall refuse to slow down. In 20 mins we were on the huge glacier and like a pro started crossing it. We reached the edge of the valley and the snowfall stopped. We could see the Kishtwar region of Jammu. We could see our campsite which was at the distance but there was a big challenge. Boulders,we fondly termed Bulldozers. The boulder section in between which was scary took almost 3-4 hours. All these hours we never looked up as we were concentrating on each of our steps in a loose rock which itself was on a glacier and all we prayed was for an early arrival of the campsite. But all the stress vanished as we reached our campsite after almost 10 hours. Beautiful big meadow with flowers interspersed beautiful colourful mountains surrounding itand river flowing by in front and a stream along with a waterfall at the back. This was Kaintal.
LAND OF MORMOTS
Cricket,Lagori and Frisbee were our cooling down activities post reaching the campsite followed by Cricket again till bad light stopped our play. Kaintal was one of the most loved campsite till date. The sunset,the starry night and the following sunrise at Kaintal were amazing.Our destination for today was Humpet. This day we saw plenty of Mormots,a sibling of squirrel,most of them social making peculiar alarm sound. In few days when the winter sets in they all will go in hibernation. An easy flat walk along side the river with barren mountains but the trail had plenty of 'Overhangs' a small goat track trail of hardly couple of feet wide and on one side the fast flowing river.We covered 14 kms in no time. The campsite was similar but in smaller scale to Kaintal. We slept thinking about the next day's destination of the village and the connectivity we would be getting with the outside world. This day's trek turned fascinating as it was diverse. Flat trail,risky traverse section then forest section with superb fall colours,a small plateau overlooking the confluence of 2 rivers,boulder section, waterfall,lunch at riverbed, never-ending undulating walk alongside the river till early evening,the grazing cows, buffalos and the yaks which was first sign of civilization and finally the heritage village of Sukhnai. Jio showed the connectivity. We saw humans other than our group all after 6 days.
GAON
Sukhnai is one of the few villages of the Warwan valley. Around 30 well maintained 1-2 storeyed wooden houses,a concave bridge on the river,a couple of shops and good-looking people who might not have taken the bath for many days coz harsh climate. Hard working locals were preparing for the winter as they would be home bound for 4 months. As we were crossing the village,the locals were staring us and so do we. They were astonished to hear about us coming all the way from Mumbai trekking in this beautiful but remotest part of the world.The next day was the last day and it was a day on a dirth track hopping villages and simultaneously exploring the valley of Warwan till our last campsite. From Sukhnai to Rekenwas,Gumri,Margi, Basmina and finally Chaudriman we met the locals visited the school examined the kids and had lunch at one of the best place at Basmina. Mountain fed ice cold water stream with kashmir willow trees lined at both the sides giving a proper shade and we putting our tired feet in the flowing water while having Pulav. It was therapeutic and memorable. Post prandial walk with scorching sun above and that too on a road was heavy. 3kms to go and we found a Tata Sumo. 12 of us fitted into with 4 of us on the top. What a way to end our trek. We reached our last campsite in no time...... Chaudriman. It was time to celebrate and it was time to wish each other for the successful completion of this trek.
INTROSPECTION
For myself it was satisfying. Honestly I didn't prepare myself physically due to lack of time. Experience of trekking in Himalayas and mental toughness scaled me through the rough times though I would definitely like to be in a better shape next time I trek. This was a tough one but one of the best till date. Desert,barren mountains,rivers, confluence waterfalls,lake that too 'aflaatoon', never-ending boulders, overhangs, snowfall, glaciers and glacier-walk,pass crossing,forests, avalanche, meadows, streams, wildlife, ancient villages and wonderful campsites. Nature showed all its elements in all flavours and showered us uninhibitantly. I thank my organisers, my team including my trek leaders,cooks,porters, horsemen and not to forget the ponies. I also thank my trek mates without whom I never trek. And finally I thank and bow down to nature God for allowing me to put foot on it.Till the next year......what will remain is just the memories.
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