And here begins our trek... Day 2

I had a sound sleep and we woke up at 6.00 am with full excitement and energy to start our trek today. We had our morning tea and breakfast and immediately hanged my trekking bag on my back. We started walking towards the foothills of the mountain (starting point), it was a plain 1 km walk till we started our climb. We took our first group photo of all 16 tigers ready to roar and conquer the mountains.

After climbing for around 40 mins or so in deep forest, we took a short halt and started removing our clothing layers as we were sweating like hell. Priyanka who was feeling difficult to climb decided to offload her trekking bag and handover it to a porter. There are paid porters who carry your luggage on a Mule or they carry it by themselves, this was informed to us by our guides the previous evening. But we come to realise about our stamina only when we actually try to attend it. I was firm on my decision to carry my luggage on my back as I didn't wanted to miss out all the odd and even experiences during this trek.

As we climbed up and up, the temperature started dropping and we were getting exhausted. Soon came our first tea point where we decided to take rest and refill our water bottles. During snow trekking one of the precious thing to carry is water and if you get a warm water then its a blessing. But things are not so easily available, we asked for a warm water and the tea stall guy told us 40 Rs. per bottle. Instead I asked him to give me a small quantity of warm water in a cup in which we prepared our own green tea which we were carrying with us. This tea stall vendor was cunning and funny, he started shouting... Pakistani Chai... Garam Garam Pakistani Chaiiiii. To which I got annoyed and asked him if really his tea was from Pakistan. He said tea grows only in Pakistan and it comes to India and rest of the places to which I got furious. I told him that India is one of the biggest tea producers and why are you going so gaga about that country. He then started about Kashmir and all other crap to which I gave him a wild look and decided to ignore him. I didn't wanted to rub my shoulders on that idiot who must have not even left his village but tried to be over smart. He then started acting weird and also demanded 40 Rs. for the small amount of water we took from him to prepare our own green tea. I told Pratik to ignore him and pay him that 40 bugs as I didn't wanted to spoil our trekking mood. This is an opposite case of a local in the same village who was money minded unlike the lady at the fruit stall who had offered us a Khatai and had refused to take money for that fruit. Anyways these are the different experiences you get when you travel which adds up spice in your travel kitties.

Brown landscape turning into white

We resumed our trek as within a km or so we started finding some amount of melted ice on our track. As we climbed further, the atmosphere suddenly started changing and the landscape started turning from brown to white. We were overjoyed to see snow everywhere, but as the climate changed the climb also became difficult. Snow was melting and hence the track had become slippery. We had by now experienced 2 different tracks one same mountain. We finally reached our camping site - Juda Ka Talab at around 11.30 am.

Juda ka Talab is a high altitude lake mostly frozen during winters and is at 2700 mtrs above the se a level. This site was mesmerizing with scenic Himalayan landscapes all around. It was one of the best camping sites we had in entire trek. It was covered with lush green trees mostly Pin trees covered with snow and snow covered mountains to add into the beauty.

Juda Ka Talab - A frozen lake

Group photo with Snowman

We started clicking photos of the mountains and the line up of the colourful tents set for us. We had our lunch and quickly crawled into our tents to take a nap. Around 4.00 pm I woke up to have hot snacks and some tea. I got chance to interact with our guide Dev Sharma , he was from Manali and had traveled all the way to Sankri for this trek. He had a sweet smiling face and was very experienced guide. The sky had turned cloudy and I feared if it will rain, but Dev told me that gathering of such clouds is important and useful as it avoids heavy winds and in turn restricts the climate to fall below minus temp. We all gathered together and decided to sit in our service tent which is usually bigger than our camping tents. Someone suggested to play cards, Antakshari and finally I suggested to play Dumb Share Arts, as I was good in playing this game 😄 This game turned to be a real ice-breaker for all of us as we started knowing each other better and also knowing who is good in doing acting 😝
We had our dinner inside this tent and during the dinner our guides briefed us about the next days trek. We dispersed quickly to go back in our tents, as I came out in the dark as looked up, I saw a jet black sky studded with glittering stars and a fresh breeze of pure air. Something which is really worth enjoying and beyond expressions....