Mayank Doshi blogs on his experience of Trekking Hampta Pass in July 2012. I love Mountain Trekking and believe it helps me realize the true power of nature. Being my first Himalayan Trek, the experience I and my friends have had has truly been worth savoring for lifetime.Hampta Pass is a 5 day trek starting from Manali and is absolutely the perfect trek that you should be doing to start exploring the largest mountain range in the world - THE HIMALAYAS
"Anything That's Easy...Probably isn't worth it"
"Live Your Dreams..."
Trekked with Trekking Group - "Trek The Himalayas"
Click here to view their website
If Variety is the Spice of Life, then Hampta Pass Trekking is
surely one of the best spices available in the Himalayan market. Ok, agreed, it
might not be the spiciest and neither it may be the most sought after spice,
but it provides just an adequate amount of tinge to your tongues that makes you
want more and more spices. Well, metaphors apart, the reason I say that is
because Hampta Pass Trekking provides you a box
of variety with respect to the geographical diversity it offers. The scenic
landscape changes its nature gradually offering a visual delight to the
trekkers. In the due course of the blog, I will reveal the different landscapes
that Hampta Pass has to offer, but as a disclaimer I would like to state that
no words can truly describe the feelings or the emotions, that we trekkers experienced over the course of five days. A picture maybe worth a thousand words but
an experience is priceless. However, my sole attempt of writing this blog
is to inculcate a culture especially among the youth to start exploring the
uninhibited beauties of nature through trekking and start feeling the true
power of nature and hence understand the responsibility of an individual to
preserve Mother Nature.
 |
| Towards Hampta Pass |
|
Hampta Pass Trek is considered as one of the easier treks in
the Himalayan Region with a difficulty level of easy-moderate and I wouldn’t
disagree. However, the difficulty levels
are pretty subjective and are only referential because even the most difficult
trek in other low altitude mountain ranges wouldn’t have a closer comparison
with one of the easier trek in the HIMALAYAS. The primary reason being that the
altitude, atmospheric pressure and the number of days we need to be pumped up
in order to enjoy the trek far beats any other terrain. The actual duration of
the trek is about 4 days ending at Chatru - however most of the trekkers extend
a day in the itinerary to visit the magnificent Chandrataal Lake which is just
a few hours’ drive from the last village Chatru. Why waste an opportunity to
visit this beautiful lake when we are just a few hours’ drive from there,
whereas people from Manali drive especially a day to reach the lake and camp
there.
 |
| The Magnificent Chandratal Lake |
|
Now, talking about Hampta Pass, let me not go with the
details too sequentially to avoid a feeling of reading an itinerary. So, Lets Fast Forward… We have reached day 3
of the trek and we start climbing towards the final summit of Hampta Pass. Here
is when snow stretches start and the feeling of trekking in the Himalayas start
sinking in. Here is where it starts getting tricky because we need to balance our
body while ascending on the snow with a backpack of around 8-10Kgs which is
such a good friend of “Mr. Gravity”.
 |
| Climbing on the snow stretch |
|
If you lose your balance, you start sliding downhill on the snow, which is what
happened with a couple of our team members who slipped almost around 80-100
feet downhill and just to be cheeky, it was fun watching them slide downhill on
the snow :P. However, despite all those minor hindrances, our trekking group made
it through to Hampta Pass well within time and that ecstatic feeling we
experienced is simply ineffable. Imagine yourself sitting at a narrow 3 steps
wide Pass at an altitude of 14100 feet (approx) and having a Veg Cheese
Sandwich with a packed Mango juice for Lunch.
 |
| Picture Perfect - At Hampta Pass |
|
Right
in Front of you are high mountain peaks completely Snow clad and on the other
side of the pass you see Rocky Boulders and fragmented rocks. The horizon is
filled with the infinities of the sky and a unique tranquility surrounds the
atmosphere. You can hear the sound of the wind and feel the true power of
nature which is otherwise lost in a hustling city life. All you feel at that
moment is completely ‘humbled’ in front of Mother Nature.
 |
| View From the Pass |
|
You
realize how you had started the trek on day one in a dense pine forest which
quickly disappeared making way for large green pastures that are used as
grazing grounds by many shepherds wandering with their herds. That was the
camping site for day one, a place named ‘Chika’ which literally means a ‘grazing
ground’. The trail along the Hampta River on the second day of the trek then
made way for a short stretch of marshy land followed by a magnificent short
stretch of floral beauty – a botanist’s delight and a romantic’s true delight
;). A little further and a little higher
on altitude, that’s where we camped for day 2 at a place named ‘Balu-Ka-Gera’
which boasts of an excellent long stretch of grassland besides the Hampta river
water stream making it an ideal place for camping. And if you thought this was
about it in the variety-box, hold on because the descent on the other side of
the valley is quite the opposite of what trekkers are used to on the first two
and a half days. Bye Bye Greenery!!!...Hello Barren Land and Stone Boulders!!! That’s
true; the other side of the valley known as the Spiti Valley in Lahaul District
hardly receives any rainfall and contains very sparse vegetation. After
climbing summit on day 3 and a steep descend on the other side of the hill, we
camped at a place called ‘Sheagoru’ – which literally means ‘Cold-Place’ and
hell, it did live upon its name.
 |
| Camping At Sheagoru |
|
It became indeed pretty chilly in the evening and the gushing
cold winds didn’t help us much either. The reason probably why it is such a
cold place is because its situated right at a valley in between two glaciers
and the glacier river flew right in parallel to our campsite. And just to add
to the agony, the 4th day morning began with the crossing of that
glacial river – Freak, the water was icy cold, but crossing that river was
probably was one of the most memorable moment of the trek.
 |
| In Preparation to Cross Glacial River |
 |
| River Crossing with Trek leader as buddy |
|
Talking
about memorable moments and there is one moment in the trek which has taken its
place right in the centre of my cerebrum which I shall never forget even if I
suffer from Alzheimer’s. We were all sound asleep in our tents on the first day
at ‘Chika’ and suddenly at around midnight there was a loud scream from the
‘ladies tent’. The shouts of “HELP!!HELP!! Somebody Please help!!” probably broke
everyone’s sleep.
 |
| Camping At Chika |
|
Now
imagine the plight of people who were camping for the first time in their
lives and you hear such screams from the girls (in fact ‘a girl’ as the other
girl had probably lost her voice in the shock). It could be something as small
as a bug that made the girl scream or even a burglar, nobody was sure. The
yelling continued for almost around a minute and I am sure it must have even
scared any ghosts wandering nearby. Thank God to our Trek leader who intervened
and said that they were just some animals that were grazing in the night and hence
they were moving the tents as perhaps they didn’t see the tent due to lack of
light. The rest of the night went peacefully but deep down somewhere back of
the mind, we were all cautious about the animals and would doubt if the tent
was fluttering due to wind or were some animals flapping it? Nonetheless, its
memories like these that are etched for lifetime. We would never forget the
time when we played cards while eating Maggi surrounded by mountains on four
sides and a nice water stream flowing besides us. We would also never forget
the team spirit when each of us held hands and crossed the icy cold glacial river
with a high water current on day 4. It’s so difficult to believe that while
trekking our bed time (or rather should I say sleeping bag time :P) would
usually be around 9PM in the night and even for all the lazy boners, we all
used to awake by 5:30AM in the morning(My Grandma would be so proud of this :D).
A totally unknown group of 12 people in Manali became pretty close to one
another in a matter of Five days and such was the bonding that we all
celebrated the success of the trek @Chopsticks in Manali.
As I told earlier, this spice tinges your tongue, making you
crave for more and most of us in the trekking group have already began our
research for selecting a trek for next year. As they say, Once a Man-eater
tastes blood, it can’t stay without it and we have been bitten by a venomous snake
named “Himalayan Trekking”!!! CHEERS!!!
To read my other blog on Trekking to Dhak bahiri (One of the toughest Treks in Western Ghats) click the below link
Trek To Dhak Bahiri
