Great Lakes Trek (Kashmir 7th July)

The journey to Nichnai begins. Little Aditi, petite Poornima, and royal Ramky are the Kodipadys from Hyderabad who set out casually for the climb. For this lovely family, this trip was a cakewalk. While I crawled, rolled and was dragged by the guide, Shamim, the tall Nithya (8 km regular jogger) seemed to cross the mountain in a moment. Nobody could keep pace with this jogger. Holly became the mountain flower, who fertiled the rocks during the day on the entire trek, while I fertiled the meadows in the darkness. We became friends with the rocks which helped us hid our bums from the public gaze.

As we climbed the craggy mountains, I was tired and breathless. At one point I wanted to give up as my hands were numb with cold. The temperature in the mountains drop as we climb up. With the clouds blocking the sun, you feel the chill further. I felt weak and uneasy and called for help. Young Viral was too young to spot my fear. But, the ghodawala, Ashique read me quickly. He understood my fear and encouraged me a lot. Rachna from TTH group revived my wilting spirit with kind words. I was soon on my toes and started climbing.

Tarun, Mala, Pramod and Halak were also very kind and supporting towards me. As we reached the snowy patch, I was confused. Everybody was ahead of me. As I followed the smarter trekkers, I fell on my back in the snow. My legs dug into the snow till knee and I did not know how to get up. Luckily, Pramod, my fellow trekker came to my rescue. As I continued, the mountain slopes became steeper and I fell frequently. At one point, I saw Tarun sliding down, after Pramod slid down, but I was scared to slide down such a long way. I begged Tarun to wait for me. He waited down at the bottom of the slope till I too slid down safely. I enjoyed the slide and looked for similar more slides.

I fell on my back on the snow frequently and Tarun counted the number of times I fell. Tarun lightened my mood by saying that "you shud be given an award for falling down so many times." I laughed a lot. Then the snow ended and the dry slopes began.

Yellow and purple flowers blossomed on the craggy slopes. The bright colours energized me. Then came a stream. I crossed the stream and was dry till the last lap when I lost my balance and my left foot fell in water. It was wet. My woodlands was wet. Then came another stream where the stream was deep enough to enter my shoes. Now both my feet was wet. After crossing the stream, I sat on a rock to squeeze the water out of my socks. Mala crossed the stream with shoes removed. By the time she had reached the other side of the stream, her feet were numb.

We started our journey again after the brief stint with the stream but we could not spot anyone in the vicinity. After a point of time we found someone in the distance. I rambled towards the people running ahead of us. As I followed them downhill, my bag of adipose tissues assisted me. Gravity was in my favour and I reached the tent sooner than anyone could imagine.

I waited for others who were with me on my journey. I waited for Holly, who looked like snow white in the horizon. I welcomed her. We rambled down together to our tent and rested till dinner. An over-enthusiastic group charged towards the Vishnusar lake uphill, while the tired souls took shelter in the tents. The sky was overcast, the wind was chilly, but after sometime the sun shone with all glee. So this was the track from Nichnai to Vishnusar.

Stomach upset, tired legs, tired backs could not stop us at all. We climbed up the Nichnai pass and down to our tents by afternoon. Aidan distributed sweets. Yes, we deserved the sweets because the Nichnai pass was a difficult climb.