Brahmatal Trek — Jan 2021

So back again with a long one (quite a few friends have told me that I go on and on …)

(TL/DR — Pooja Chauhan, Pradeep Chauhan, Surabhi Shah and I successfully completed the Brahmatal trek, did river rafting near Rishikesh, and witnessed the Ganga aarti at Har Ki Pauri, Hardwar)

Life has begun after 50 for Surabhi. It all started with a night walk to Siddhivinayak planned by Shailesh Harani in late November 2020, followed by a camping experience at Lake Shirota near Lonavala in December 2020. Pooja and Surabhi enthusiastically joined both the experiences and enjoyed the same as well (even though Pooja struggled to walk the 26km to Siddhivinayak, but successfully did it).

Sometime in December, Rajiv (my ex-colleague and trekking/trailwalking buddy) called me and said that he, Kamal and Anil had booked for the Kedarkantha trek with Indiahikes for January 2021, and after 15 months of not trekking, I decided to join them and registered for the trek. When I told some friends about it, Pradeep also registered for the same (a first time trekker). Then almost by a miracle (she has never bothered about where I was going for a trek or the details about the same in the past few years), Surabhi told me that she and Pooja also would like to go for the winter trek! I was both happy and concerned (as I had read that winter treks are a different animal, and also experienced the same this time) — but then decided not to let their spirits down. Kedarkantha trek had no free slots, so we all moved to the Brahmatal trek — which is supposedly less crowded that the Kedarkantha trek. As part of the fitness certification, we all had to do a 5km run in under 42 minutes, and one fine early morning, we downloaded a running app and did the run within the prescribed time — AND Surabhi’s app malfunctioned! So the next morning, Surabhi did the run again, with an assistant to hold her phone and run alongside her so that the app would hopefully not misbehave again. No prizes for guessing the assistant! With the fitness test in the bag, we had a few rounds of trips to Decathlon to do the purchases for the trek — esp. for Pooja, Pradeep and Surabhi. (Interestingly, for Pooja and Pradeep, the cost of the gear was more than the trek fee and the flight tickets put together!).

The D day (11 Jan 2021) was there and we met at the Mumbai airport for our flight to Dehradun. Thanks to Murali, our friend from BVM who is currently posted at Srinagar (Uttarakhand), we had a good driver — Sanjay Kashyap — to pick us up and we reached Srikot near Srinagar late afternoon (via Devprayag, where Alaknanda and Bhagirathi meet to form Ganga) where we were planning to take a break. Murali and his friend Saurabh Pandey treated us to a nice dinner late evening, and the next day (12 Jan 2021), we left for Lohajung which was our basecamp for the trek (I had done the Roopkund trek with IH in 2016 and the basecamp for that trek was also the same). We passed Dhari Devi temple on the way, which was again a very beautiful sight, as the temple was in the midst of the river. We reached the basecamp in the afternoon and soon had the rest of the trekkers join us. Again, as in the previous treks, we were the outliers in terms of the age group (for both Roopkund and Goechala, there were 4 members who were 50+ and the rest of them under 30). There were 6 interns from Kolkata — around 24 years of age (Ashmita Mazumdar, Nawang Choden, Nalini Singh, Alisa Kujur, Sardi Soren and Manisha Dey), 3 2ndyear medical students from Mumbai (Dhruv Gujar, Yadnesh Khadkekar and Lavisha Agrawal ) and a final year Mechanical Engineering student from Mumbai ( Kashyap Desai ) — the youngsters from Mumbai around 20 years old. Our trek leader was Areeb Parvez (I used to call him Areeb Areeb Single) — all of 23 years old — but a great manager, leader, motivator and many more things put in one. Our guides for the trek were Gopalbhaiya and Deepak/Deepu bhaiya. We had a briefing about the trek in the evening by Areeb and we were given our dormitory rooms — I planned to have a bath next morning — but then decided to enjoy the luxury of not bathing (blame it on the cold water, I am yet to follow Wim Hof, the Ice Man!). The updates from IH said that the previous week, there was heavy snowfall, but then the snowfall had stopped a few days before out trek was to begin, and Pooja and Surabhi were a bit disappointed that they would not be able to witness and walk in snowfall (but later thanked their stars that there was no snowfall when we trekked!)

We started our trek the next day morning after breakfast, and just before leaving, I realised that my backpack had a tear near the base. Dhansingh, the trek manager, sewed the tear for me, and we were good to go. The first hour was a bit exhausting as we were starting cold and there was an ascent, but then the body started getting used to the walk, and it was relatively comfortable. We had a break at a dhaba, had omlets and coffee, tried drinking water straight from a stream — lion style (though someone spoiled the fun saying it was more like a dog drinking), and finally reached our first campsite, a bit before Bekaltal. It was in the mid of a forest, with a slight slope (some of the girls were commenting the next day morning that they had to constantly slide up while sleeping in the night, as the sleeping backs used to slide down the slope because of gravity). After having our lunch, we went to a place from where we could see the valley, and played Dishkiyaoon and Virtual Volleyball (great fun) and then moved back to the campsite. After reaching the campsite, both Surabhi and Pooja started feeling unwell — headache, nausea and Pradeep and I were a bit concerned if they would be able to continue the next day. Surabhi started feeling well after some time but Pooja was still uncomfortable and told Pradeep that she would go back to the basecamp the next day. Areeb asked us not to think about it and leave it for the next morning to take a decision. The nights were cold but nothing compared to what we were going to face for the next two nights.

In the evening when we were resting, and Surabhi was a bit down, the “boys and girls” decided to play doctors, and did a “

Badhai

Ho” for Surabhi and me by making a small snowman — which they termed as our baby (some of the girls are likely to be IVF specialists, look like). It was a very cute creation, and lifted Surabhi’s spirits, as right from the start of the trek, she was harping about making a snowman on the trek.

On Day 2 of the trek (14 Jan 2021), we had to go to Tilandi which was a campsite on the ridge of a mountain with beautiful sights on both sides of the mountain. In the morning, Pooja was back to being a confident person, and Surabhi and she decided to at least go to the Tilandi campsite and then take a call whether to go ahead or not. We passed Bekaltal on the way, which has got quite a mythological story behind it, as narrated by Deepak, our guide. We had lots of fun on the banks of Bekaltal, where some of us did supported hand stands, supported hand stand walks, co-ordinated pushups etc. The trek was quite uphill, and when we reaches Tilandi, we were awestruck with the view. The site was quite windy, but no one seemed to mind that. We had lunch, and then Surabhi and the youngsters started the project of making snow man (another IVF for us, but this time a fully grown child!). Surabhi had carried a Santa’s cap, material for nose, buttons, eyes, a ribbon etc for the snowman from home, and again a beautiful creation was made. All of us clicked lots of photos with the snowman, and some of the other trekkers who were camping at the site, as well as the kitchen and other staff grabbed the opportunity to click photos with the snowman. We then waited and witnessed a heavenly sunset. The night was very windy and chilling and we slept in two sleeping bags — there was a carpet equivalent on the ground, then 2 sleeping bags, a fleece liner to sleep in, after wearing thermals and two layers of clothing!!

The next day was to be the summit day and we had to start in time as any delays could mean that we could be exposed to bad weather or a cloudy sky which would mar the view from the top. It was quite an ascent and somewhere before “Jhandi Top” we had some mobile network available, which allowed me to send some of our pictures and well being messages to family and friends. We had great views from Jhandi top, and then after further ascents, we reached the Brahmatal Top — an absolutely amazing sight — difficult to describe in words. The entire team was elated when Pooja and Surabhi made it to the top, and soon everyone was emotional, with tears flowing down the eyes for quite a few of us. Areeb asked us to write down the positive emotions we were having, and said that referring/ remembering it during tough times would make it easier to face the adversities. We spend quite some time at the top, taking tons of photographs, had our packed lunch there, and then started the descent to our campsite which was located very near to the Brahmatal Lake. The descent was challenging with quite some snow to navigate, and it was equally fun, with people engaging in snow fights! We reached the Brahmatal Lake — again a very nice view, and then the campsite. We had quite some fun in the night post dinner, with some of us playing the game of “Dare or Dare” (though no one completed any of the dares!) and then trying to give adjectives to all of us — in line with our personalities. Post that, there was a session of ghost stories and incidents which supposedly had happened not so long back at the campsite where we were staying. This location, though not so windy, was colder that the Tilandi camp! When we packed up in our respective tents, many of us stated hearing noises of someone walking around our tents (and some of us got out to see that there was no one around!).

The next day was our descent day and we were to walk down back to the basecamp — which means the entire distance and ascent done in 3 days to be reversed in just 1 day — fortunately, there was a short cut! Pooja, Surabhi, Pradeep and I started about 30 minutes before the others so that our slow pace of walking does not hold them back. They caught up with us on Jhandi top, and then our descent started. We had lots of fun while descending with talks around assorted topics. The entire group let Surabhi and Pooja lead the descent so that they don’t feel that they are lagging behind, and finally we reached the campsite in the evening. We then were allocated our dorms, had our baths after 5 days, and then met for a debriefing session after dinner. We were given nice fridge magnets of Brahmatal Lake, and all of us narrated what we thought about or experience on the trek, before all of us called it a day, as some of us were to start for Rishikesh/Dehradun at 4am the next morning.

In terms of the trek — like my previous treks — all of us bonded very well and it was really lovely meeting all young friends and spending time with the newly formed family. I was not able to spend time with all of them to know them well enough — maybe we should have had 2–3 days more — but then something is better than nothing! The great thing about the youngsters was that they did not isolate the 4 of us, but made us a part of their group, joking with us and also encouraging Surabhi and Pooja throughout the trek. The two snowmen (Badhai Ho moment) that they all made was an ultra sweet and emotional gesture. I was continuously pulling the legs of some of them, but I know that they all took it in the right spirit. It will take some time to get used to the drab life in Mumbai without these young, bubbly, full of energy friends, but then, hopefully the hangover will be there for some time. I also realised that I was a completely lost guy as a young adult — doing what was the right thing to do as per the social norms — and these youngsters made me feel good and envious at the same time that they all have great clarity of thought of what they want to do, and also that unlike the rest of the generation, these boys and girls all have willingly embraced experiences like this trek — which will again help shape them into much finer human beings. And special thanks to Areeb, Gopal, Deepak and the rest of the crew who were working in the background, to make this such an interesting and safe experience for all of us.

On the way back from Lohajung to Dehradun, which is where we were supposed to catch our flight to Mumbai from, we had planned to do river rafting from Byasi to Shivpuri. Again, surprisingly, both Surabhi and Pooja, who are afraid of water, were game to do rafting and wanted an option where we would encounter rapids! The rafting took us about 2 hours and it was absolute fun, with all of us jumping down the raft into the cold Ganga river, and enjoy the topsy turvy journey while navigating the rapids. We then headed to Hardwar for witnessing the Ganga aarti at Har Ki Pauri, had our dinner at Chotiwala and then reached our hotel in Dehradun for our flight back to Mumbai the next day.

All in all, a great experience — I would strongly recommend that one should try at least one easy high altitude trek in their lifetime — the feeling is blissful, humbling, adventurous, introspective and many more such adjectives. You meet strangers who by the end of the trek feel as if you have known them for years — and there is lots to learn from all these friends whatever be their or your demographic background.

I am also very happy that Surabhi and Pooja decided themselves to come for this trek, did it successfully though it was a bit challenging, and living and enjoying the experience!

Yes, now you can breath — assuming that you read the whole thing!

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