“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.” I decided to go on a trek instead of a vacation relaxing in a hotel room, I took the one less travelled by, which has made all the difference.
In February 2021, I decided to go on a trek along with my college friends. We had completed 2 treks to date, Kedarkantha in January 2019 and Sandakphu in December 2019. In the midst of the pandemic, when we had already spent the last 12 months at home, we knew we had to get out into nature. We decided to go to Brahmatal Trek with IndiaHikes.
Thus, it began!
We started on February 18 from Mumbai. We took an afternoon flight with Spicejet for Dehradun where we landed at 3. We had booked our stay at Nandini Home Stay for the night. This was a beautiful farmhouse on the outskirts of Dehradun. We went to bed early because we had a long day tomorrow.
The next day Feb 19, we started at 5 am. We left for Lohajung in the car arranged by IndiaHikes. The ride to Lohajung is a long but beautiful one with some amazing tourist points like Devprayag, Rudraprayag etc.
It took us about 12 hours to reach our destination, having our breakfast and lunch along the way. We reached the Lohajung base camp where we were welcomed with hot snacks and smiles. After that, we went up to our dorms to freshen up. In the night we had our introductions with the trek leads (Leo and Ankur) and the group and were briefed about the trek.
And the Trek begins…
The next day we started our Trek. The plan was to reach Bekaltal Campsite by lunchtime and stay there for the night. It was a bright sunny day with beautiful scenery throughout the way. Along the way, we stopped for a water break by a river stream where we had a fun activity of who could dip their faces in the stream for the longest.
After this, we continued and reached the base camp right on time for lunch. In the afternoon instead of getting into the camps and resting, we played some games. In the evening our trek leader, Leo took us out for an activity that changed our lives. There is nature, with just us and no one around us, we found ourselves. We each went up to a tree for this specific activity, hugged it, and thanked it for everything. Then we sat next to it for 15-20 mins sharing our secrets with the trees, the secret would remain there forever. Wowww! This was a life-changing moment for me. In the evening after having early dinner, we went back to our tents where we would rest for the night.
Early morning began with black tea in my hand and sunrise lighting up the beautiful peaks and the colourful trees. After having our breakfast, we were given a walkthrough of how the kitchen is managed at the campsite, and it was pretty impressive to see how they managed it while ensuring to protect the environment. IndiaHikes is committed to making the mountains a better place, and for that they have done so many things, starting from Green Trails, wherein all the trekkers collect waste along the trek thus leaving the mountains cleaner. This activity gives immense satisfaction, as a matter of fact, we brought back 45 kg of waste from the mountains alone from our trek. Then we started towards Tilandi base camp, where we were divided into 3 random teams, and I was in team Nanda Devi. Along the way, we had our first sight of the snow and the snowy peaks throughout the route. After the snow fight, we crossed the Bekaltal lake, where we spent an hour meditating, listen to stories about the lake and so on…
We reached Tilandi Top in the afternoon where we were served with hot lunch. The view from Tilandi was mesmerizing surrounded by snow-capped peaks. In the evening we had fun playing games around the campsite. The winds on the Tilandi top were pretty strong and as the temperature dropped in the evening, it was difficult to stay out of the camps. After having our dinner, we got ready to sleep with the excitement of the Summit the next day. Yes, you heard it right, it was Summit Day tomorrow.
We woke up very early at 4 am, had our breakfast and started walking towards the summit with head torches on. The night sky was shining above us, and excitement was shining in our eyes. The sunrise view, the first rays of sun reflecting from the snow-capped peaks around you, felt like heaven. It felt like staying there forever, pausing the time. I don’t think anyone in that group will ever forget the summit day. We reached the Summit at 10:17 am! Yes, we recorded the exact moment. We took a bow to the mighty mountains for letting us climb them.
The feeling of achieving the summit push is a special one that I will cherish for the rest of my life, one that I will remember when I am down in life. There on the summit, I wrote a letter to my future self, putting every feeling I had on that piece of paper. I don’t have any more words to describe that emotion. Then we started moving down to the Brahmatal campsite. We spent the night there, and this was going to be the last night in the camps out in the woods. Emotions were flowing since we weren’t ready to say goodbye to the beautiful place.
The next day we started to move back down to the Lohajung base camp. We moved through the dense woods taking a different route than the one we travelled while climbing up. Though we were excited to complete the trek, we were sad that it was the last day of the trek. We reached the base camp in the evening, celebrated our victory, congratulated, and thanked everyone.
I will cherish this trek, these 4 days, all the people I met, all the activities and all the views for a long time…
THE END… Until the next trek!