travelogue - part 2

here is second episode from where i left in the previous post:

next morning we again packed up our bags and started for Chandratal. this was again supposed to be around "14-15 km" long but the only added advantage was that we were no longer required to carry the heavy sleeping bags. the ponies were doing the favour for us. just a 500 meter walk and the guide started climbing up an incline. thinking that this is the only route, though we could see a normal road going ahead, we followed suit. the climb turned out not be a very difficult one and when we were finished, we were happy because the few who were coming by road had to walk more than 1 km on the dusty road. after that, it was like another routine walk for many kilometers but we took breaks more frequently on this trek. after walking for close to 4 hrs (including another good incline and this one didn't have stones also, but it was all sand so we didn't slip) we came to a place where the guide told us that now the chandratal lake is just 2 km away. further he added that it is 1 km of straight walk and 1 km of decline, that's it. after this, he continued ahead but 4 of us decided to rest thinking that we are almost there and rest of the folks are far behind us. we slept there, even with sun straight into eyes, for more than an hour and when we woke up realized that all others have passed by. this was like the story of rabbit and turtle, though we were not having any race. anyways so we started for what would turn out to be the longest 2 kms of my life, adding to it the fact that for miles there was not a single human being in front of or behind us. we were badly missing civilization. it was not before walking for 4-5 km that we got sight of lake and this fact really invigorated us. thankfully, there was a shop there which supplied consumer goods and we filled our stomachs with some food and cold drinks.

after taking some rest, we put up our tents and had photo-session with the lake. the lake is spread over an area of approximately 2.5 square km and is a source of medicinal herbs. infact the greenish-blue colour of the lake water is due to the numerous herbs at the lake-bed. but there were some bad news in store for us. one of the group members was in real bad shape, in fact he had to be given oxygen at night for quite some time and only then he was able to say a word. many others were having severe headaches and some were simply feeling very bored at the prospect of continuous walking whole day. so it was decided that these people will go back to manali the next morning and the rest will proceed further. we were actually only halfway our final destination, Baralachala Pass (altitude 4600 meters), and had more than 2 days of trek left which also offered 2 river crossings. but when we woke up the next day to restart, we came to know that the plan had changed completely. in view of the fact that some of the people were not well and that there was no further means of retreat once we move ahead of chandratal lake, it was decided by the guides to cancel further trek. so the guy who was not well was taken back on ponies to the place from where bus was available to manali, a couple of guides and 2 of our group members also accompanied him. later we came to know, that he became all well as soon as he reached manali.

since the rest of us were to leave the next day only, we had one full day to enjoy the place. the guides encouraged and three of us took a dip in the lake water, it was real cold but soon we forgot that fact because after missing bath for more than 3 days (in which we walked and sweated a lot), the touch of cold water was feeling very nice. later in the afternoon, we came to know that avneet has gone alone and that too without water to climb a mountain top. so when he didn't come back for long, we got worried and three of us decided to go on a lookout for him. me and jugnu were in floaters only but we gave up the idea of changing into shoes thinking that we won't be doing much of a climb. it was a rocky mountain, so the initial climb was quite easy and we took only a couple of breaks in the first around 100 meters of climb. but after that we really started feeling the pain of oxygen-thin air. after every few steps, we were taking a break. also there were still no sings of avneet so we had to climb even more. we walked for another 100 meters, and it took real long, and finally decided to give up assuming that avneet must have gone on some other peak. so we decided to climb down which turned out to be real fun. when it was another 100 meter to go down, god knows what got into my head, i started running (one wrong foot especially with floaters and i would have been rolling down on rocks, but for some reasons unknown to me, i could not resist the temptation) and climbed the remaining distance in about 2 minutes. it felt nice to be back into the tent and soon avneet also joined us. as assumed, he had gone in some other direction, he actually climbed for more than 2 hrs and finally successfully touched a glacier. at this point, i remember the story. when someone asked a great mountaineer "why do you climb all these mountains" and the answer was "because they are there". nothing unusual happened rest of the day. this was the silence before the storm that was to enter in the lives of some of us the very next day.

i will conclude my trip details in the next episode.