"Yehi Toh Adventure Hai"

This summer, I participated in a 10-day mountaineering program, organised by Regional Mountaineering Center (RMC), McLeodganj in Dharmashala. We were a bunch of 26 people, most were affiliated to IISc.

McLeodganj is home to a lot of Tibetan expatriates including the Dalai Lama. It's a serene place on top of mountains where people from all over the world visit mostly for meditation. If you have seen any cricket match happening at Dharmashala stadium on TV, you'd have noticed huge mountains in the direction of mid-wicket boundary. One of those is McLeodganj. 

Our base camp was also at a beautiful hill, surrounded by a thick forest of Silver Oak trees. We reached in the evening of our scheduled first day (thanks to our toy train from Pathankot moving at a snail's pace). We all were allotted a single dorm with bunk beds and were immediately called up for our first exercise. There was a track made of a few hurdles of varying kind; walls, tunnels, ropes etc. and we were asked to do two laps of it. It was fun despite us being tired from long travel.

Amazing Triund

On our second day, a short day-long trek was planned as a warm-up exercise. The destination was Triund, part of Dhauladhar range of Himalayas. It's at an altitude of more than 9000ft and the distance from our base camp was about 7km. We started our climb through the forests of Silver Oak early in the morning.

It was an easy climb. We enjoyed the view of Dharmashala town while going up. There were some tea shops along the way too. They use mules to transport goods up the mountains as can be seen in the picture.

Before noon, we reached the Triund top. It was an amazing sight. There were huge snow-clad mountains of Dhauladhar range right in front of our eyes, albeit beyond a valley. Since there was no easy path to cross the valley, we contented ourselves with Triund. Not that, it was any less beautiful as the following picture shows.

We ate our packed lunch on the lawns. As soon as we were finished, it started drizzling. Soon it got heavier, so we rushed to a restaurant hut. It was amazing to find a restaurant at such an altitude where not many people venture. It rained for full two hours. People found shelter wherever they could as these three ladies in picture.

Once it stopped, we had our 'fall-in' ritual where our instructor Malkeet enlightened us on the geography of Himalayas, Triund in particular. After that, all cameras came out and we had a group photo-session before starting our descent. That's our entire group (including our leader dog) in the next photograph.

Camping

Over the next 6 days, we had to stay in various camps nearby and had to do some small activities there. It started with Ghera, a village 5km away from McLeodganj. We had our breakfast at the base camp, packed a rucksack  and started towards Ghera. It was largely a straight walk, though there were patches of steep climb and descent. Once we reached there, we were allotted 4 tents and given a sleeping bag each.

It was time for our first activity -- river crossing. There was a river (I forgot its name :-( ) close to our camp. Our instructors, Jeevan Thakur, other Thakur (I forgot his name too :-( ) and Sapana took us to the river. We were given a lecture on various methods of river crossing and then were asked to perform it using the easiest of the methods. With the support of a rope tied to rocks at both ends, we had to walk across the flowing stream. People did it with ease and then played in the water for a while.

Evening was free for us after river crossing. Perfect time for a game of Rummy, isn't it?

New day, new destination! We moved from Ghera to Harnala in the morning. It was again a moderately difficult trek of about 6km. 

We gained some altitude though and thus the scenery was a lot better at our second camp. A water stream was flowing down the mountains and passing close to our tents. Due to various reasons ranging from unavailability of hot water to sheer laziness, some of us were not taking bath regularly. So when Jeevan Thakur asked us to join him for swimming at a nearby pond, many people jumped at the idea. We enjoyed there for at least an hour. In the evening, instructor Malkeet gave a talk on camping covering many topics from camp hygiene to handling emergencies. His fluid style of speaking to go with knowledge gained from experience made it a captivating talk. He also taught us a few basic rope knots that are used during mountaineering.

Evening was again free for us. Some decided to use it to prepare themselves for tough tasks ahead like this gentleman in this picture. He, by the way is leader of Bhoopathy gang -- one of the two rival gangs formed during the camp. (The other being Sarath gang!)

There was a camp-fire planned in the night after the dinner. But rain gods had some other plans and we had to stay inside the tents. It was a perfect opportunity to unleash my favorite game -- Mafia. It just needed one round of the game for people to start arguing (an indication of people enjoying the game!) and we could have only three more rounds when it became too late to sleep.

For the next day, we were again stationed at Harnala. We had our second activity in the morning, and third as well, that of rock climbing and rappelling. Instructors took us to a nearby place where there was a big rock of about 30-40ft tall. 

A few guys managed to climb up easily. But most required help from instructors, particularly from Sapana who was pulling everyone up using a belay rope at the highest point of rock where there was no easy grip. Rappelling though turned out to be a much easier task. 

Pramod wanted to make his mark, and mark he did, albeit on a different rock as you can see in the picture.

In the afternoon, we tried our hand at putting up tent. Then came a surprise event -- tug-of-war. We had 5 sub-groups in our group based on our formation. Instructors conducted a tournament among these 5 teams and it was decided that they would play against the winner. All the guys put up a great show and we had a lot of close fights. Surprisingly, the final was a much one-sided affair and wonder-of-wonders, it's our side that came on top. Instructors had no place to hide. They promised to give us a prize for beating them. It turned out to be quite a surprise as you would find out in a while.

Our camp in-charge at Harnala (Damn, I forgot his name too :-( ) was a jolly good fellow. He took us all to nearby villages just to show us around. Amazingly the villages, all built on edges of mountains, had all basic facilities like schools, hospitals despite the geographical challenges. The camp in-charge had a lot of stories to tell on the way -- his encounter with leopard, his fight with bear, his football trials for Indian national team, herb smuggling in the area and so on. It was a good time because of his company.

The one thing we missed out on the day before was camp-fire. There was no rain interference this time though. And we had a long session of performances at the fire. There were songs after songs, sung solo or in group. Our instructor Jeevan told his story of love and break-up through songs ably supported by male singer of the day -- Javed. The female singer of the day, Jyotsna had a few old Lata and Asha numbers in response. The mood was lightened by Tamilarasan who moved it with the Madagascar number and by Ashwin with dialogues from the legendary Angrez. There was a group performance also where Rajesh and co. performed a small skit. And then there was a Munni-Sheela jugalbandi between two items -- Venkatesh and Giridhar. Quite a night!

On our fourth day of the camp, we moved to a place called Reuittee. It was a pleasant 8-9km trek up the hill. We encountered many ladybirds and a lot of rare plants on the way like this Cobra plant in the picture.

As we came close to our destination, it started raining and when we reached, it transformed into a hailstorm. Once it settled after a few hours, we were informed that the place observed second highest rainfall in India, after Cherrapunji. Ah, so that explains the hailstorm.


Our main attraction of the camp -- Kareri lake was in the itinerary for the next day. It's a fresh water lake at a high altitude (~9000ft) in the Dhauladhar range. It took us about 2-3 hours to reach there. The lake was shallow in most parts making its base clearly visible.

There were a few snow-clad mountains on the other side of the lake and further ahead was beautiful Kangra valley. We wanted to touch snow and since we had some time, we put our bags to a shed near the lake and started marching towards a closest snow point. It took about an hour to climb up. We all were excited and played with the snow for quite some time until it became cloudy. There were signs of big rains around, so we rushed back to the shed. As soon as I reached, it started pouring hails again. People squeezed in the shed and waited for clearing of the sky. Our lunch was prepared by the time everyone returned. We were served an awesome Khichadi, the best food we had had at the camp.

We came back to Reuittee once it cleared. As there was nothing else to do, evening was spent in playing dumb charade and mafia.

After a wonderful experience of Kareri, our return journey started the next day. We were supposed to reach our first camp at Ghera in one stretch. Return journeys are often uneventful. Well, this one also was until we started solving logical puzzles on the way. Vikas anna had a handful of them and I too had some. We had Samrat, Jyotsna and Bhoopathy for company. We were walking alongside a stream of water. Rest of the group was at some distance from us. After an overdose of puzzles, Jyotsna and Samrat got bored and quickly crossed the stream not knowing that that was not the right way. We three too followed them and soon we all lost the way. There were 3 streams of water in that area and we didn't know which one to follow. There was nobody around and we didn't have network as well. We saw a few huts at some distance and went in that direction. Thankfully there was a man there who showed us the right way. But we wasted more than an hour and at our intermediate stop at Harnala, found that the rest of the group had moved ahead and only Jeevan had stayed behind. He was about to come looking for us when we reached. We then covered the rest of the journey quickly and reached Ghera by lunch time.

In the evening, we had our last activity of the camp. It was a very interesting task. We were divided in three groups. Members of each group were tied by a single rope and were aligned in a row. Each member could control distance between his/ her closest partners using the rope. We had to run a lap around the camp that included a river, a forest and a road following cairns. We had to move synchronously to finish faster. It was a challenge crossing the river jumping on rocks at same speed. But that was the essence of the task and after a few initial hiccups, we managed it quite well.

It was time for a surprise in the night. Remember, instructors were due for a gift for beating them in tug-of-war. And our gift was - a survival night. We were neither given any food nor any shelter in the night and were asked to spend the night at a ground under the sky. Huh! The only saving grace was that we were allowed to carry a sleeping bag and other necessary things. So we smart people included packets of biscuits and nuts in the necessary things and 'survived' the night successfully.



Back to base

So after a joy ride of 6 days, we came back to RMC base camp in McLeodganj the next day. There were no activities for the rest of the day. So we went out to explore the town. We visited Bhagsunag temple and then a local market. Momos is the most famous street food in this area and we got real tasty ones with an awesome chutney along with it.

We had our dinner also in the town and this time I tried the other Tibetian dish, Thupkas. It was nothing but soupy noodles boiled with meat balls, a healthy dish.

The next morning, we had our felicitation program. Everyone was presented with a badge and a certificate. There were two special awards too. 'Best trainee', given to Rajesh and 'Keep the Himalayas clean initiative' award, given to Nagaraj. The head of the institute, a retired army officer, Mr. Gulati delivered his speech and our program came to an end.

Our instructors did a tremendous job managing us. We guys were never on time for any activity or fall-in, but Jeevan and others didn't complain. Though I feel they could have done with being a little more stricter. The mountaineering camp in Pahalgam which I attended earlier was a lot more disciplined. It was needed to be  so since most of the activities there demanded big effort and needed to be taken seriously. This camp was more of a fun trip and so the friendly behavior of instructors was justified in some sense. The photo below shows the four instructors that were with us throughout -- Malkeet, Monty, Jeevan and Sapana from L to R. You go with any problem to them, the first reaction would be, "Yehi toh adventure hai" ("This is what adventure is all about...") :-).

The camp wouldn't have been such a joy ride but for the participants. We had a variety of people -- PhD students, research assistants, lecturers, lawyers and a few national treasures (read IIT undergrads!) as well. This eclectic group of people made it for such a wonderful experience. Amod, Pramod, Nagaraj and others did a great job in cleaning the mountains by collecting plastic wrappers and bottles on the way. Javed was an informative person and great to have discussions with. Jyotsna had an energy of a kid. IITians-to-be (Ashwin, Quarter Sid, Samrat) were also an enthusiastic group of people along with Silicon guys (Bipin, Vikas, Nagaraj). Sarath and group carried the responsibility of staying at the back end faithfully :-P. The fantastic four, the ladies, everyone else were a great company during this camp. Cheers!

Photos courtesy: Sandeep, Bhoopathy, Siddharth, Javed, Gayathri.