Vagrants in the Valley

Update: After reading the post and surfing through the pics on picasa, lemme know if you are jealous of me πŸ˜‰

Me and six friends of mine along with two others had been to Manali for a 6-day trek to Kalihani Pass guided by Mr Kaushal Desai of above14000ft. Easily, it was the best 6 days of my life. I will let the pics do most of the talking. The trek costed us 7.9k. Travel to and from manali and two days’ food at Manali extra. The title of the post is inspired by Ruskin’s novella of the same name. Best pics from my cam are available at here. More pics are available here, here, here and here. Some videos here and here

On day 0 we went water rafting on the Beas River. Cold water (5-7 degree C) being spalashed every now and then when we enter tubulent rapids was chilling to say the least. the 14 km rafting costed us abput Rs. 700 including taxi.

Beas River, Kullu

First day was relatively easy, we trekked for nearly 5 hours and reached the base site. There were horses that carries most of our luggage, glossaries etc. They were extremely agile, almost twice as fast as us.

There were three dogs named Maggie (the mom), Bikki and Scrawny (the puppies) which belonged to our guide. Here’s a video of them.

Day 1 and 5 camp site

Day 1’s campfire was awesome as well. It rained on day 2 just as we were 15 minutes into the trek. We saught shelter under a huge rock. That was the day when we had our first encounter with snow. None of the newbies were spared, we all slipped and fell.

This day was also the most hectic day and the 4-5 hour trek became 10 hours because we got lost in the clouds and this shepherd found us our way.

day 2 and 4 camp site


In terms of scenery, day 3 was the best. These pics will testify that.

Green carpet of grass sprinkled with purple and white flowers and studded with rocks

This is the best pic I have ever taken so far

day 3 camp site

We also had our share of fun with the snow πŸ™‚

Day 4 was when we reached 14000 ft. The changes in temperatures was quite apparent during the trek. Also that was noticeable was the lack of oxygen at higher altitude. For ever 10-20 steps I took, I had to breath for 30 seconds to pull myself together for next 10-20 steps.Above 14000ft

Day 4 onwards, we retaced out steps back to manai. We, unfortunately, couldn’t trek upto kalihani pass owing to hostile weather. But we had our share of fun.

The trek: 7.9k
Tickets to delhi, then to manali, and back: 5k
camera: 10k
Memory card: 1k
Pic of this intimidating rock: Priceless

Priceless

(Slogan courtesy: Aziz)

Best pics from my cam are available at here. More pics are available here, here, here and here. Some videos here and here.

Here the entire group of trekkers sans the horses and the dogs

all of usΒ 

9 Replies to “Vagrants in the Valley”

  1. What a cracker of a trek! if only i were able to come πŸ™
    Two things which i noticed:-
    1) You still have your faithful bag.I think thats one random fact u forgot to mention.
    2) Was one of the rocks giving you the middle finger!???

  2. Hey and I actually liked “Daily Chime” da. Arcade of Thoughts is umm… more poetic certainly but lacks the whatchammacallit familiarity of the older blog.

  3. Hey, first time i came here by “www.coolshankin.com” Lovely! How did you get in templates and pics and all. Nice address. And “arcade” of thoughts huh? Not really sure what you mean by that…..

  4. Cool da ! Hey I guess you have lost a lot of “colour” . Was it the aftermath of an exhausting trip ? !!

  5. @mahesh .. yeah
    @bra … thanks
    @middler …. god know whose message …. my “the daily chime” was not ‘daily’ … so the new name ….
    @rajeev …. yeah …. constant exposure to sun

  6. Hi coolshankin,
    I read ur trip log to the Kalihani pass. Was just amazing primarily due to the fact that the Himalayas are awesome and very few people trek over there. So the fewer people who trek there are simply amazing. I am aalso a die hard trekker and have done various treks in the Himalayas and am planning to do the same trek in June with the same operator as yours, Kaushal Desai. So just needed a few pointers from ur side.
    1) Is Kaushal gud enough
    2) Money that he charged per person
    3) Total no. of days ( Manali to Manali)
    4) Detailed day wise itinerary, if u can mail me

    Thanks
    Lakshit

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