APRIL 17, 2017 | India - Shanti
Namaste friends and family,
The trek was absolutely amazing. The night before the trek we stayed at the Colonel’s Resort and we all enjoyed the western luxuries there, like hot showers and free toilet paper. Then the next morning we had breakfast at the resort and then they drove us up to our starting point for the trek.
The first day we walked along a dirt road until a certain point, then we climbed up the side of the mountain to get to the ridge at the top. Once we were all up there we sat down and ate our lunch while enjoying the 360-degree view of the mountains around us. Then from the top we walked down a trail to a village called Raj Gundar. Once we got there the guides set up our tents and we hung out around the camp fire waiting for dinner.
Then the next day we had breakfast at 8 then headed out on a day hike to a glacier. But unfortunately we didn’t make it all the way to the glacier because the bridge we were supposed to cross was broken. So we ended up having lunch by the river under the bridge. The trail itself was gorgeous. We crossed several waterfalls and patches of snow. We also had great views of the mountains and on the way back a few of us and the guides had a snowball fight which ended up lasting most of the way back down the mountain.
On our third day we packed up the tents and the guides gave us two options, we could take a difficult path or an easy path to the stop we were having lunch at. So Willow, Kai, Emma, Amber, Liam and me ended up doing the difficult path which was amazing. At the beginning we ended up going uphill for a straight two hours, but the view at the top was breath taking. We got up to 10,000 feet and we were just surrounded by snow capped mountains. We also watched paragliders and had cake which out guide brought with him. Then we made our way back down and met up with the other 3 who didn’t do the difficult hike for lunch. After lunch we made our way up to our campsite and again sat around the fire sharing our life stories which helped us get to know each other better.
On day four we set out around 10 in the morning walking along the ridge. At one point when we stopped to take a break we saw another group of local women hiking and of course they wanted to stop and take pictures with us. After that we made our way further along the ridge to our lunch spot, and we all enjoyed some maggie noddles, which is considered the ramen of India. Then after lunch we walked along trolley tracks, made in 1924 by British armies, which lead us to winch camp. Winch camp is a hydroelectric plant, where we set up camp for that night.
The next morning, day five, we walked further down the mountain and along the trolley tracks again to get to a lower part of the hydroelectric plant. Once we got there we told some more life stories and had some afternoon tea. Then on day 6 we woke up early in the morning to give the guides enough time to pack up our stuff and headed down to another hotel where we had breakfast. After breakfast they drove us back to the Colonels resort where we all took a nice warm shower. We are staying the night there and then heading off to a vegan farm for two weeks.
