Then we asked Sherpas "What are the names of these peaks?"
Sherpa said "These? These are not peaks.. These are hardly 14,000 - 15,000ft above sea level."
What? I knew the guy has climbed 26,000ft.. but still, kind of feeling embarrassed, I walked away from the group....
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This year I did Sar Pass trek.
We started from 'Kasol' which is at 6,500ft and on first day climbed upto 8,000ft and camped at 'Guna Paani'. When we reached camp it started raining heavily. So heavy that we were actually scared if we could finish the trek or not. And we should turn back. But rain stopped after 4-5 hours. We came out of our tents in the morning and just looked around. It Was Beautiful...
This made us forget about turning back. And on second day we went forward to 'Funal Paani' which is at 9,500ft. This second day trek was pretty simple and weather was also very good. Tents were on slopes. We slept at one position n woke up at the end of slope :)
Third day trek was kind of difficult because of heavy rain. Path was very slippery. Me and one of my friend reached the third camp (Jirmi - 11,000ft) early and found this Glassy looking sky above us...
It was good that we reached a little early because then we found out the path became even more slippery and that people formed chains to climb up.
At night we gathered for campfire. We looked up and we were astonished to see thousands of stars that we never able to see in city. My eyes were my camera that time. No man-made camera can capture such a beauty.
We were around 60 when we started. But there were only 24 of us when we started for Tila- Lotni camp. Everybody else returned to base camp from Jirmi coz they had no extra cloths after two days rain.
Our group was smaller so we moved faster.. At around 12,000ft I saw these cows n oxen taking a break or something and I was like - "What?? How on earth they reached at this height?" I took the photograph.
I like the colours involved in this photo.
Tila-lotni. 12,500ft about sea level. You know, lot of my friends at US keep telling me how they hate snow and snow fall. But if you climbed for 3 days and then what you see is something like this (check below pic) then how can you even think of hating it..
We Just loved Tila-lotni Camp.. It was like heaven.. correction. It was heaven.. Pure white snow all around the camp area. and beautiful peaks like these.
We slept little early.. and woke up at 10 at night because of freaking cold... scary... but then again slept woke up at 2:30am and started packing. It was D-day. First ray of light and we started climbing up. Here we were companied by two trained Sherpas who had a lot of experience. climb was getting more n more difficult. firstly because there was no grip and secondly because there was lack of oxygen.
But when we reached top, we were at 13,800 feet. For the first time in my life. It was amazing. Like top of the world.
It was around 7:30 in the morning. Sun was just above the horizon. I faced the sun. Felt like I'm challenging the sun god. I guess he took the challenge n gave me a Sun-Burn :( But no matter.. It was waaay too awesome to think about this stuff.
I took the below pic of my friend at 13,800ft. I like it becase of Black shadow - White snow combination. This pic, I think, looks great.
We were 13,000+ feet for next two hours. There was Tea shop (tapri) at 13,800 ft. Imagine that!
And then there was this amazing snow slide. Sliding from 13,000ft to 12,000 was Crazy as hell.. We enjoyed it a lot. we reached Biskeri camp (which is at 11,000ft) at the end the day. We had a feeling like the trek is over now. So next day we descended to 6,500ft in one go skipping one day.
Trek was over. next almost a week we were travelling here n there. First Kasol then Chandhigad, Kalka n lastly Shimla. It was like another holiday after great trek.
On our first day at Shimla, I came across one guy with a telescope and stand.
That guy pointed finger to few mountain tops visible from shimla and asked me "Do you want to see these mountain peaks? Only for Rs. 10, sir"
I said "These? I'm just coming from the top of one of these peaks."
and I walked away. And this time I was proud of myself...
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I wanted to write post about my trek for last two weeks but didn't get time. But its for good coz BlogAdda announced this Share your travel photos contest. So now this post also acts as my submission to the contest. Its sponsored by site PringOO which has collection of T-shirts/mugs like these -
