Getting back to the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand after 6 long years, this time was for a well-planned and prepared Kuari Pass trek. For those of you that are wondering why I’m emphasizing planning and preparation, please read my first blog post – The Beginning for some context.
You know the cliché about Goa trips? Trips with my school friends were never like that. We went on a lot of trips. Weirdly, my friends always wanted to go to the Coorg/Chikmagalur region. I was game for the first 2-3 times but that’s all. It was hard to convince my friends to go to a different/new place. Eventually, some of us started going about on our own and a whole 10 years after knowing some of them, we got to go on a North India trip together this time, for the Kuari Pass Trek. After planning for it for a while, in Feb 2023, we finally decided to do this in April ’23. Ronak, Adi, Sahish and 2 of Adi’s friends- 6 of us booked our flight tickets and the trek with IndiaHikes.
The Build Up
I was excited to finally be doing this with these folks after FOREVER! As the dates approached, we all had to get our fitness game going strong. We had to show that we could run a 5k in under 38mins (this isn’t that hard to do but if I’m talking about it, I’m at least that unfit right now 😐 ). The first time I tried to do this was at the beginning of March, I took about 40mins for the 5k but I couldn’t walk the following week! I decided to do some routine swimming to help out with this as well. By swimming almost every day and running a couple of times a week, I managed to cut a couple of mins from the total time to be trek ready.
As we approached D-day, as always we had one of us backing out of this, as usual (fortunately, just one!!). Finally, Ron, Adi, Anoop, Vidya and I leave for the airport. We left Bangalore on 7th April for Delhi. We had a 2 pm bus from Delhi to Rishikesh. This was one frustratingly long journey. What should have taken us 4-5 hours took up about 8-9hrs in total. We reached our hostel, dumped our bags, grabbed a quick dinner, hit the shower (possibly the last for the next few days) and crashed for the night. We were set to start at 5 am the next day. The taxi was to pick us up at 530am from Rishikesh for an 8-9hr drive from here to our base camp, Karchi. To reach Karchi, we needed to pass through a couple of ‘Prayag’s and Joshimath before making a diversion towards Karchi.
Day 1
Road trips and I don’t go along too well. I get super motion sick. I have just one trusted remedy – sleep. I try to sleep for as long as I can on the road while eating as lightly as possible. When I’m not asleep, I like to look outside the window and imagine myself in a music video while enjoying the mixed bag of songs being played.
. Luckily for the 5 of us, we got an Innova all for ourselves. We were able to make stops as and when we needed without depending on the larger group. One such stop was near a famous place where I had stopped on my first trip in the region when we were stuck due to a landslide. (Hint: 8 PM and a night I simply can’t recollect)
We were the first to reach Karchi and what a sight it was! It was cold and windy, but simply beautiful. With a view of the snowcapped mountains just before the start of summer.
As the rest of the group arrive, we had some chai and popcorn for evening snacks and gathered for introductions and the trek briefing. I thought it was quite a lengthy briefing session but I guess it was needed for the first timers on the trek. There was a lot of unpacking and repacking going on. Everyone was excited to leave early then next day.
Akhrotghetta – 9200ft
The first day had a steep climb to a meadow or ‘ghetta’. We started somewhere between 830-9am. After the first few breaks, we were asked to find a buddy – someone from the trek we didn’t already know. We were supposed to get to know each other and make our way together towards death! Or the ghetta whichever came first 👀. Just kidding 😜 or am I?
Slowly but steadily, we reach the meadow at noon. It was this large mostly flat ground with one big tree on the edge- a Walnut(Akhrot) tree (and hence the name – akhrotghetta). Nothing too adventurous today. Just a lot of walking and not using the phone.
It’s now time for toilet training! Although I have been on treks before, this was the first one with a dry-pit toilet. It’s quite the experience. I enjoyed having an enclosed area to go take a dump on a trek. You know how it’s awkward when you’re in any other toilet except your own and you try to be AS SILENT as humanly possible? Yeah, no. Here, you better make some noise indicating you’re inside xD
We then had lunch and gathered in the dining tent to get to know each other better. We played a game of ‘deep’ and ‘thoughtful’ questions. Did I enjoy all of it? Ehh so-so. There were cards with questions on them, “What do you want to be remembered for?” (the one I got), “What is the meaning of life?”, “What is the meaning of happiness?”, “What is one mistake that you learned from?” and 20 other questions – one for each person in the group. Sure it’s interesting to talk about some of these things but was it really genuine? God only knows. It took way too long though.
Khullara – 11,014ft
Today started off with me waking up early to catch the sunrise. I had been binge-listening to this song called ‘City Life‘ by Raghav Meattle and wanted to record myself singing this while waiting for the sun to rise. One of those songs that just gets to you, all the feels. Here’s my attempt:
Today, the trek leader asked all the attendees to pick 3 people who would lead the trek in a DIY fashion. I volunteered for the most important role – the Sweep Guide. Now, the sweep guide is the one person that ensures no man or material is left behind at the campsites, break-stops or anywhere on the route. This person is also meant to be at the very end of the group and does not have to keep up the pace like the ones in the front (yes, now you know why I volunteered 🙃)
Today’s climb was short, we took long stops (kills the momentum completely) and finally reached the campsite a little after noon. This was a very crowded campsite with multiple trekking groups from various organizations camping here. This was also the base camp for a couple of treks in the region. I took a nice long nap before we all got out again for evening snacks and chai.
IndiaHikes has an initiative called Green Trails where they intend to ‘Leave mountains better than we find them’. Khullara being a hotspot for waste (thanks, humans!), the team went around the entire campsite to pick up any non-biodegradable garbage from there and bring it back to the base camp. It felt great to do this, albeit in a small manner. Thinking about this initiative throughout the trek, I decided that I will carry an eco-bag (a bag India hikes lends to all their trekkers to pick up any garbage on the trails) to all of my treks in future, be it with IH or not.
Tired and disheartened at the way people keep the mountains, we all gathered in the dining tent to regroup for our briefing for the next day and discuss how we felt about the evening. We had our dinner to mark the end of a bittersweet day.
This brings us to the Summit day! Will write about this and more in the next post!
The Indian Passport 
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