A trek to Phulara Ridge

 

The era of the mobile phone and the internet has become a lethal combination.

Machines were invented to reduce human hardships and make life easier so that more work can be got done in the same time with less effort.

They invented those machines and the machines became more efficient by people improvising and fine tuning them.

They save us time and they save us money.

The washing machine washes our soiled clothes; the dish washer cleans our soiled dishes; the mixer and cooker helps us cook food faster and the vacuum cleaner keeps our homes tidy.

That saves us a packet of time and then our inventors forgot to invent stuff that people could use with all the saved time.

So people have invented activities that are so addictive that people spend all the time that is at leisure and all the time that is required for what little work they are supposed to do.

These activities are in that small five inch screen and we concoct or own activities to supplement the activity done by other that is neither productive nor adds to our repertoire.

And not only have the activities become a waste of productive time, but they are used to create mischief, mistrust and enmity among each other as well, but then that is another story altogether.

So what exactly is it like not to have the internet, not to have the telephone, not to have any machines to cook our food, not to have any machines to wash our clothes and utensils and not to have any electrical gadget at all?

Maybe you cannot imagine such a life at all!

But I do!

Every year, my family and I live such a life for over a week.

We do all activities that doesn’t require any machine for the week.

We carry our worldly possessions with us which are change of clothes, a small utensil to eat our meals, a trekking pole and off we go into the Himalayas.

This is a photo essay on our escapades for the last week of the month of May this year.

Nestled between the Sivalik ranges and the Himalayas, lies the town of Dehradun. About eight hours drive from Dehradun, in the high reaches of the Himalayas is the village of Kotgaon.

From this point onwards, we go trekking up the mountains walking for six to eight hours every day and camping in tiny tents, eating simple meals, using primitive pit toilets, drinking water from the streams and springs, picking up garbage left by careless trekkers, watching stars at night, and birds and flowers and the trees and the mountains.

This year we went trekking across a ridge called the Phulara Ridge because of the beautiful flowers that the mountain bears.

This ridge stretches for several kilometers with a cliff on the northern side and steep slope on the other. The ridge is hardly a metre wide at some stretches and only one person can walk at a tine along the ridge in such places.

The first day was a very steep climb through a dense pine forest. We started very early in the morning from the base camp and this drained a lot of energy out of me.

One of the pre-requisites of the trek was physical fitness and this training had begun two months in advance. It included a target of completing a 5 km run within 35 minutes, walking up 20 storeys and down of a building with full back pack within 17 minutes, crunches, squats and stretches.

It is not difficult target if you train hard and we did put in diligent effort on it and achieved the targets.

So inspite of this training, the first day was difficult for me as the ascent was quiet high and there is the fear of acute mountain sickness.

We set up camp near a beautiful lake on the first day and the scenic beauty made us forget all the pain in the legs and shoulders.

The second days trek passed and cleared the dense forest and we came across the huge open grasslands that are locally known as Bugyal.

This stretch has breath-taking sceneries and you feel you are in heaven!

All round you are beautiful huge snow topped mountains and huge stretches of grasslands sloping away from you and above you as well!

Photographs don’t do justice for the magnificence of the landscape.

We camped on a bugyal on the edge of a forest and we had the first hint of snow and hail storm.

The next day’s ascent was through a dense rhododendron forest. Rhododendrons are beautiful shrubs with absolute stunning flowers that grow in the higher Himalayas.

There was snow accumulated in many places. We had been warned earlier that if we came into heavy snow fall or heavy rain, we would have to stay put and would go no further. However, we were lucky as we missed the snow fall by a couple of days and the heavy rain actually came later during our descent!

The ridge was simply out of the world; when we reached it, I literally had tears in my eyes! On both sides on the ridge were steep cliffs and in front of me the snow clad mountains, the sun shining off the mountains hiding behind the occasional cloud!

After the initial euphoria, we spent about half an hour alone, in our own company, trying to soak in the beauty and enjoying the silence apart from the whoosh of the wind and the chill in the spine from the cold air.

Our guide gave us a post card each to write to a loved one or to ourselves.

Four local dogs had been with us throughout the journey from the base camp to the peak and they stayed with us on the descent back to base camp over the next couple of days as well.

As we were returning back from the peak, the clouds suddenly gathered and showered us with rain and this rain lasted for the next two days right up to our base camp.

In between we also had hail storm and lightning, thunder and more rain, but the Gods were kind to us on the journey up to the ridge and so we didn’t mind the rain and the wetness and the cold because we were a contented lot having had our share of spiritual contentment.

We spent the last evening of our camp together talking into the night and sharing our good times and suddenly we realized how much we were going to miss each other.

As we begun our journey back towards Dehradun, we realized how peaceful life is without all those machines and phones and internet!