A jeepily not-so-creepily trek to sandakphu
Lup-dup, lup-dup, lup-lup-dup. A piece of cork floating up and down in a turbulent pool. The kind of movement one may find acceptable in a boat but not quite what one would expect in a jeep on a road. But this jeep was no ordinary jeep and the road not just another route. We were on a World War II vintage Landrover on a journey from Maneybhajang to Tonglu, a sequene of continous potholes punctuated with cobbled stones on an inclination reaching 20%. In short, with all the ingredients that would ensure a monopoly for this classic piece of 4-wheel driven machinery with tight turning radius and phenomenal power-to-weight ratio.
But, first let me come to the point. For this is not an atypical advertisement of vintage jeeps, but just another typical travelogue. Since this jeepy-but-not-so-creepy trek was marked with jeep journeys of all kinds, it seems apt to start with the classic Landrover leg of the journey. But, first the facts. We were on a trek-cum-trip to Sandkaphu, the amphitheatre for kanchanjunga. The idea of this trek germinated during my roopkund trek when a trekking group from Bengal did a very good job of selling Sandakphu as trek with one of the best view-to-effort ratio. Google-facts claimed Sandakphu to be a 35-40 km trek route from Maneybhajang, which is a further 90kms from NJP, the railhead. Further one can take a circular route by descending from Sandakphu to Rimbick, a 25-30km journey by google-fact. The real distance are even less than that predicted by the min is closest to truth theory, that old-timers must be familiar with. For newcomers, the theory in short is that the least of the distance and height figures on web are most accurate. The full explanation is buried in some other travelogue. Anyway, the facts. Sandakphu is less-than-30km trek from Maneybhajang (31km by Landrover route) and approx 21-22 km from rimbick.
A lot of rail-reservation drama preceeded the actual trek as the number of participants vacillated between 4 and 8 finally to end up at 5. Amol Goldie and Rahul have become your constant companions along with me in these travelogue now, with Sarvesh, Amol's frnd from Transwitch, making his debut courtesy a TTE who allowed him to travel on his WL 1 ticket on Rajdhani for a king's ransom of 1000 (ok, 1k was a poor king's ransom). Before, I lose my way in the maze of events that followed, let me get the itinerary out for info-hunters-on-the-web.
From To Distance Date NJP Maneybhajang 90 jeep(Rs900) 6-11-04. 12-3 p.m. Maneybhajang Tumbling 11 landrover(rs 850) 6-11-04. 3-4 p.m. Tumbling gairibans 7 km trek 6-11-04. 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Gairibans Sandkphu 13km trek 7-11-04. 8 a.m. to 12 noon Sandakphu Rimbick 20-22 km trek 8-11-04. 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Rimbick to NJP via Ghoom 150km (rs 880 + 900)jeep 9-11-04. 7 a.m. to 1 p.m.
So, we landed at NJP around 11 a.m., boarded an excellent condition Sumo Victa, and had a comfortable ride to Maneybhajang. We quickly switched over to the Landrover with our newly-promoted-from-porter-status guide Bomas accompanying us. Negotiating the steep turns and the still-left road amongst the holes with surprising ease, the Landrover deposited us to witness a fantastic sunrise minus Kanchanjunga. A top-of-the-ring view of the dying sun dispersing its lifeblood amongst the very clouds, in which it slowly sinks, was a sight that for me remains the best view that this trek had to offer for me (I can see Amol disagreeing). A not-so-quick round of noodles followed the sunset and we then we were off to the now-routine night trek leg of the trip. On routes that are properly marked, a night trek is the cheapest way of adding some extra thrill to a journey, that if taken in broad daylight become monotonous soon enough. The 7 km stretch is fairly level and none of the interesting animals, that Bomas mentioned to dissuade us from taking this night trip, paid us a visit.
The next day started promisingly with Everest and Lhotse paying us a visit only to end on a disappointing note as the clouds conspired together to deprive us of a kanchanjunga-sunset-from-sandakphu, with only sandakphu but no kanchanjunga and no sun. By this time, Amol was seriously frustrated with the no-show by Kanchanjunga but we had one more shot at Kanchanjunga, on the next morning. Locals and google-facts promised us that during this time of the year, Kanchanjunga is quite disciplined especially during the early part of the day. The night raised expectations further as the sky cleared and was lit with all the star constellations, whose name I do not know. The more-than-expected cold did ensure that night-sky-observations were fairly short and we were back in the comfort of our sleeping bags (the blankets provided in the huts seemed insufficient for the cold)
Kabhi-aar-kabhi-paar went the song. err.. rather just the tune in the alarm. I wonder whose mobile it was. 4:30 a.m. in the morning. time to get out of the sleeping bags, time to wear all the clothes that were kept warm by keeping them in the sleeping bag, time to venture out, time to have a dekho at the kanchanjunga if the clouds obliged us with their disappearance. A peeping glance through the shades revealed that chanda-mama was still in full glory, and there was still some time before sooraj chachu woke up. We decided to get ready anyway since putting on 5 layers of clothes inside a snuggly-fit sleeping bag takes a fair amount of time. After a few minutes, 4 warriors emerged out with all their arms drawn to fight the omnipresent cold.
The first half-hour was our moment of glory. Kanchanjunga slowly emerge from the shadows and we slowly crawled further up the hillock to catch better views. In between, the wind slowly started picking momentum. The wind was a pleasant one, or so it seemed, initially. This was no chandratal-wind, that would cling its flaws right through your skin to the bones threatening to dislodge you off your feet by its ferocity, but a steady wind that would slowly squeeze its way through the multiple layers of your clothings. The sky was clearing, the sun was rising, the fingers were clicking, the shutters were falling, and Amol and Kanchanjunga's faces were beaming. And suddenly the out-of-the-gloves-for-long fingers were numbing, the vision was blurring, the head was spinning, and the whole body was trembling. In short, I was losing my battle with cold. I stepped down from the top of the hillock to beat the wind. But, the wind that had initially seemed too-feeble now just refused to dwindle off. With every step down, what I was buying for myself was just some extra time. I looked around and found Goldie and Rahul to be in similar shape. I can no longer remember who was sane enough to admit first, but we decided that it was time to to indoors.
We took some quick shots and rushed indoors only to emerge after the sunlight filtered through the windows. The kanchanjunga was all ablaze in the glorious sunlight and the fingers clicked some more and the shutters fell some more. Then we were off, off for a steep descent to Gurdum, for a topsy-turvy up and down to shirkhola, for a gentle meandering walk to Rimbick. Again, nothing eventful happened here for me to bore you with the details and we reached Rimbick, though a little later than expected. The next day was an on-road affair with a Sumo followed by a Mahindra Marshal finally culminating in a 5 hour long bus journey on a dustbowl from NJP to mera gaon. Oh well, there was something intersting in between. a brief chase down the ghooming hills of ghoom trying to catch up with the narrow gauge train, trying to get our moment of singing 'mere sapnon ki rani', trying to capture the train-looping-a-beautiful-green-landscape moment.
And finally the bottomline. Is this trek recommended? People do their treks for all kinds of reasons. Amol, for one, lives for the thrill of familiarising himself all those peaks, that we have only heard of, watching at them in an unhindered view. Goldie seems to favor the greens and the reds and the blues, all interposed together. Some less arty people like me trek because it cuts us off from the rest of the world, sometimes letting us understand our real priorities, sometimes giving us a much needed break, but always making us realize to take a day at a time, and really live life for the moment. So, for people of the first category, the trip is recommeneded for the sheer fact that you get to watch No1, 3,4,5 peaks from real close, a view of a peak closer than what you get from any hill station.. and these are no ordinary peaks, they are the biggies.. for goldie et al, April is a better time. April when the rhodendorns would bloom, april when the grasslands would turn the brightest shade of green, april when the white lilies would carpet the slopes. And for the rest, the wanderers, go there when it is really cold.. go there when the mobile charging points would not be available, go there when the running hot water would not be available, go there when the landrovers would not be available, go there when there will be snow on all the slopes, go there when it would be december or january.