A walk to Churdhar
I realized lately that I no longer attempt a precise answer to the question, 'Where are you going?'. Instead of a precise answer like Churdhar, I stick to answers like 'to Himachal, near Shimla', in an attempt to preempt any further questions like 'where is churdhar?'. A busy September October meant that the annual Gandhi jayanti trek had to be cancelled and with people itching for a trek, even a shortie, meant that we had started to consider simpler (read shorter) options. A fair bit of googling at various times had revealed churdhar to be an interesting option; good views, fair trek and just 350kms away from Delhi. So, after a long hiatus, we were back on the trail, even though it was a very short trail.
So, let me first get the facts out of the way. So, where exactly is churdhar? Churdhar peak is located in the Sirmaur district. The base of the trek is a place called Nauradhar, 137kms from chandigarh. You take the shimla route and take a deviation from Solan, through the Solan bazaar, to take the Solan-rajgarh road. From rajgarh, it is another 27kms via a place called Deedag, which has a tented resort called Himgiri nature resort. The trek itself is an 18km walk, half of which is through forests and the rest is more of a goatie-rocky trail. The claim to fame of Churdhar is that it is ostensibly the tallest peak in the outer Himalayas, thus providing an uninhibited view of the upper Himalayas. I can't vouch for the former, but you can definitely confirm the latter from the pics. For me, the claim to fame of Churdhar, it is just out there; waiting for you on one of the weekends. We were a motley group of eight, with Purohit, goldie, amol and myself being the regulars with Pradipta and Sourasis debuting and Sridhar and Pradeep of chandrashila fame rejoining after an extended break.
The plan, as is always the case, was very simple. Pick up tents, book a quails, leave Delhi on Friday evening, reach nauradhar on Saturday morning, figure out the snow condition, and replan. As is not always the case, we did not need to replan. We had been informed of early snow and bad weather from various folks at different yahoo groups and also from the himgiri resort. As the ever-cheerful-and-helpful proprietor of the best dhaba at Nauradhar pointed out, there was hardly any snow to create any discomfort. He did suggest us to take a guide as the route at a few places was not very well marked, or rather not very well-walked, implying that the trail may fade off at a few places.
As readers from the early Can-Vof-be-done-3-days? days would recollect that we are not really receptive to suggestions, and hence, started our 18km march without tents or guides. The first couple of kilometers are a bit steep, as it takes you to one of the hills overlooking Nauradhar. From there on, it is a 7/8 kms of rolling hills walk, as the hills you walk on, slowly increase in height. In this merry walk, we came across one of those not-well-walked trail points, and were merrily proceeding in the direction our noses pointed to, when the One way up, many ways down theory broke our reveries. Now, as is the case with most theories, the One way up, many ways down is simple to the level of even being labeled as inane.
The theory simply states that while you may come across only one path leading to a peak/an open area/a less walked plateau, there are typically many ways down the peak/open area/less walked plateau. As the loyal readers are well aware of, we have this crazy fascination for all such theories and stick to them quite religiously. Hence, we scoured the less walked area for other trail possibilities and found the trail that looked the most promising. A short walk and a 'churdhar mahadev' signboard confirmed that we were heading in the right direction.
The merry walk leads one to a pass called Tisri, which actually is more like a ridge connecting one set of hills to another. Here is where the tree line ends and we are on to a more rocky boulder territory. As one crosses the pass, the scenery change is immediate and probably dramatic (with age, dramatic now has to be very dramatic to even seem dramatic to us). One gets his first view of the upper Himalayan ranges as the trees no longer impede the view. A rest, some snaps, some gud-chana, and we were off to Churdhar. We were promised during our googl-ing of one water spot after Tisri but we failed to find one. So, a suggestion (that if I were in your place O' gentle reader, I would anyway discard) to fill up at the last water spot before Tisri.
The walk from Tisri is where we found a bit of snow on the trail. A bit of it; not too much, and not too less. Just enough snow to liven up your spirit without inconveniencing you in any way. Though we were reasonably well stocked up in terms of gaiters etc, it was a relief not to use them. And by then, we were in dire needs of some lifting of spirits. For the 18km walk coupled with lack of sleep in a cramped quails had started to take its toll. Notwithstanding the splendid views above and the sparkling snow below, questions of the when-will-we-reach type started to escape from people's lips more and more frequently. However, the stretch from Tisri to Churdhar has enough in it to banish such thoughts with more adrenaline-pumping thoughts.
There are a couple of glaciated streams in this stretch that one has to cross though. Now, what exactly are these glaciated streams? Don't be misled by the term as it conjures up an exotic image in front of your eyes; of stalactites (or was it stalagmites), of long stretches of icy walls, of water bubbling under your feet. For these streams were none of these. Just a boring stream that had frozen over into a slippery mass of ice; probably the promised water source :). The fact that this was a slippery mass of ice broke our boredom though, as we had to find a way up the hill where the ice mass was narrow enough to cross and we made it to the other side. There was this small matter of our backpacks, though, which we had left on the other side, as the short uphill climb was steep enough to upset the balance of a slim backpacker dangling across the ice.
As it turned out, it was not much of a problem. We tied the backpacks to a rope and pulled them across the ice. Of course, the backpacks slipped, and threatened to jump down the icy-slope, to long awaited freedom, but finally succumbed against the combined might of eight desperate trekkers. The adrenaline rush ensured that the next km was covered at a fairly decent pace, but the when-will-we-reach questions resurfaced after an appropriate pause. Thankfully, we did reach soon after leading to the death of any more questions of such nature.
The rest of the story is not much interesting (provided you found something interesting till now) as we settled down to the usual stuff of shooting sunsets, drinking tea and bidding good nights in our cosy sleeping bags. There was a free sarai and an inexpensive dhaba that offered us fabulous dinner before the good nights and a fabulous breakfast after good-mornings, finally bidding us good-byes, as we trudged back the 18kms to Nauradhar the next day. The rest, as they say, is fairly boring stuff.