Apr 8th - Day 4 - Will we or Won't we ?

Day 4 - Trek: Joreybotey to Thulodhap (5 hours, 2981m)
We continue our walk over the ridge enjoying beautiful mountain views . Towards the end we

pass through thick rhododendron forests to reach the most beautiful campsite on the trek.

I woke up at the first light and stepped out. Nobody was out, but I could hear Ron and Anuja. Soon Ron was out of his tent… it was 5AM. It had been a wet night, and the ground was moist. It was still pretty cloudy, and Piran came by and said that it was not looking too positive L Suddenly we started to see, in the distance, the outline of what appeared to be the Kanchenjunga range. Far away.. and we started to wake folks up to see the Kanchenjunga range. We could see some speckles of snow in the sunlight, but too hard to tell which was which mountain. But we were seeing the Kanchenjunga ranges allright. We had our eyes glued to the sky and then all of a sudden the position of the sun and the shadows changed such that the ranges came alive. We could see a couple of snow clad peaks, while Kanchenjunga itself was hidden behind clouds. As the clouds moved, other peaks (like Kumbhakaran and one that Venky insisted on calling KVibha) came in and out of the clouds. Piran said that it’s a short window between 5 and 6AM when the clouds clear out and you can see the peaks like this… then they are hidden once again. We were absolutely ecstatic in what we had just witnessed. Its hard to explain what we had seen. You have to see it to experience it, and we will always remember this morning. I am hoping some of the pictures did it justice.

The Singalila Range creeping through the Clouds -- as seen from the Campsite

Singalila Range (Kanchenjunga Mastiff) sandwiched between the Clouds

By now we have had several conversations with Piran about moving forward. The porters were adamant that it is not advisable to go ahead and despite our best efforts, the rest of the trek was called off L Bummer !! Bummer !! At the end of the day, the porters had to carry the supplies through the terrain and it wouldn’t be fair to push them beyond their comfort. So we resigned to out fate. So, Plan B. We hike down(6 hr trek) to Hee Village and spend a day there and then drive to Uttarey and Pilley. So now its going to be sight-seeing and day hikes L I am thinking we do at least enough day hikes to cover the distance we were supposed to cover. After all, the hikes here are amazing too.

So, we have breakfast, pack tent and head down. Once again, we are heading out into the most amazing trek. We are walking though forest as the fog draws its curtains behind us, the green mountain slopes with rhododendrons and magnolia trees. Its like walking through a jungle… actually we are walking through a thick jungle. I have never done something like this before and I have forgotten all about the trek we have missed for the trek I am now part of. “You know you can do walking meditation” Anuja tells me” focus on your breath and the sounds around you and push away all thoughts and be in the moment”. I start to focus on my breath and the sounds around me… the birds chirping, the sounds of our feet on the twigs, flowing water at a distance and the names of all of Kavita’s Parsi friends around the world. There goes that J

Into the mist, downhill to Hee Gaon (Village)

Our Porters

Jack and Jill went down the hill....

Short lunch stop after over 3 hours of hiking. We are all feeling good and enjoying this. “How much further?”, we ask, another hour and a half we are told at 2:15, we should be there by 4 I am thinking. By 4, my knees are starting to hurt. We have been climbing downhill (it seems like a vertical drop) in this semi-tropical jungle for over 6 hours, and the knees are feeling it. Anuja is also in pain. We get some pain-relieving spray in our knees… limited relief. Watch every step or you could slip in the muck, which all of us have already done. 

David, who adopted us as his family

Trees Trees and more Trees - I love the Greenery

Now a new problem… leeches. Venky pulls a couple off from his shoes. Mona has a couple on her… and then I see one on my track pants.. followed by dance of panic as Mona pulls it off J As we start taking more breaks, we split into two groups as Monozh goes ahead with Nagesh, Kavita, Mrinal and Minoti. NB (Nar Bahadur 2) and Piran are with us. Piran is carrying Anu’s bag as she is carrying one leg with both hands. We are out of water when we come across running water. We collect it and start to add iodine to it. “Can drink it after 30 minutes” says Ron…“whats the point, we are nearly there” says Piran (I file that away in memory). At 4:45 we drink the water and eat some ‘shot blocks’ to keep us going. Slowly we come up to a clearing with some construction. “Ram was here during his Vanvas and they are bulding a temple here”… allright… “saugand Ram ki khaate hain, Mandir …” I am thinking while the others are complaining about how dirty this path would get once we have religious tourists here… Speaking of that, this path we took today was completely devoid of tourists… and quite pristine (barring the few plastic wrappers that the locals had dropped on their trek up foraging through the forest).

Hiking into Dense Foliage

Our Fearless Leader

Back to that knee… we continue down the mucky path. We are supposed to be 15 minutes from civilization, but I can only see forest around me as far as the eye can see and a path that leads just downwards !! Finally at around 5:30 we spot the gate to the sanctuatry… we had made it… “Let me go get a rickshaw” I joke as some humor returns. NB tells us the other group has reached the guest house. We take some pictures at the gate to the sanctuary and head on down.

Bad Knee #1

Bad Knee #2

Mona is suggesting I take a couple of Alleve for the pain, but now we are near the guest house so I am thinking I will take it at the guest house. Bad idea.. 20 minutes later we are still walking through the village and climbing down. The guest house is nowhere to be seen, so I final pop in the pain killers. Nagesh calls us and I think he is coming to get us in a car so I tell him where we are. Am I getting delusional? Now the pain is unbearable. Two of the porters join us and one of them takes my bag while the other supports me all the way. Slowly… painstakingly we get to the guest house. Its about 6:30PM. We have been walking down a steep incline 3,000 feet or 4,000 feet for close to 9 hours.

Soon enough the second group joins us (they had stayed back for us…never got to the guest house….and there was no car… they walked down the steps of the village in pitch darkness to get here).

Finally we make... yup, everyone gets to the Guest House @ Hee Gaon

Deserved Celebrations... Not sure if we would do such a strenuous 9hr hike again... Or Never say Never

I don’t think I spoke much for the rest of the night. The pain in the knee was still there and going up and down the steps was not easy. We bid goodbyes to the support staff, tipped them, shook hands and took pictures. The sweetest, most beautiful people they were. Then we showered, drinks as we sat down to discuss the day and Mona was making notes for her journal…. “So when did we leave?” “When did we stop for lunch?” “When did you pee Anuja?” etc. Dinner was served downstairs and we had bottled water again. The dinner special was a local jungle Fern that Monozh had been plucking as we had trekked down… along with eggplant, cauliflower, carrots, daal and rice. “Would you like to trek up to a nice view point tomorrow ?” Monozh asked? “Can you arrange for a car to go around? And don’t wake us up before 8AM) we responded J Nobody is doing any strenuous treks tomorrow. The bodies need a break after what we got through today, I think. Lets see, hopefully the knees are doing better tomorrow. Outside the knee pain, I am not that exhausted, so we will see. But Day 5 will probably be a rest day, a “Cultural tour” as Minoti calls it. I go up and hit the bed… someone brings my bag in. It has my valuables, but I don’t care at this point. I am going to sleep, hard and long…