3 Rilkot

Day-3 Part-1 [22-Oct 2016]

Trek Nahardevi to Rilkot

We start today trek at 7-40AM and walk on a stony walkway at the edge of wide boulder strewn river bed valley. The walkway is next to a sheer rocky cliff face. In about 500M we come to the Nahar Devi "temple" .. two Deities in two small "Mandaps" on a platform at face-level on left, below the sheer cliff-face. Our porter Gopal has thoughtfully brought agarbattis to light there! Picture Op.

Beyond the temple the trail climbs into a narrow ledge cut into the cliff face. The river here is in a noisy rush negotiating the gorge.

It's again a long walk of 11KM today .. made more strenuous by the many "up and stairs" to negotiate around the huge landslides. There are no intermediate teahouses today, so we had carried a lunch pack of extra Parathas (that we had for breakfast, with awesome tasting baigan-bartha) from the Nahardevi teahouse.

At 11:45AM we stopped briefly at a huge landslide and ate the Parathas. Here there are some new concrete embankments built (may be for the future road when it reaches down here from Rilkot?).

Around 1:45PM we saw a windmill ahead, mounted on a tall tower, turning swiftly in the wind ... so I guess we are now nearing Rilkot. At 2:00PM we reach Rilkot (3130M) where the river valley had widened considerably. The scenery here above the river looked like Ladakh. And it was gusty and windy in the narrow valley. The dust was blowing all over the place due to loose earth coming off the construction work that BRO was doing nearby. Apparently, a rough 4WD road starting from Milam has already come down up to Rilkot.

At the Rilkot teahouse we had the owner cook us a lunch of Upma (made from MAIYAS (old-MTR) packets Manz had brought in his backpack). The teahouse owner said he could provide us stay room in his home a little bit above the trail. But he said there may be a GREF truck coming along to carry some cement bags to Milam.

If that happens then we could get a free ride all the way to Milam! So we decided to wait for some time and see if the GREF truck does come. Sad though, it will cut off 2 days from our trek plan of 11-12 days (and maybe 2 more coming back).

Day-wise story in sub-pages below: