I am grateful to French Group of 8 people who gave me the opportunity to travel with them to Himalaya. It was much needed respite from my otherwise busy schedule in Bengaluru. We did this trek from 1st July to 3rd July when Monsoon had just entered North India and was constantly playing with us, be it the mountains or the town of Manali.
Day 1
I reached in Jagatsukh where our friends were staying while Meghraj (Cloud King) went to Camp to collect Tents/Sleeping Bags.
We had our breakfast and started our trek to Bakar-Thach around 9 AM. We took our first break where Tar Road ends and mountain trail starts, There was a Guy selling Chat and helped us with a Gram chat like a photo below (Source - Google) :-
Weather was fun today and we reached Bakar Thach around 2:00PM. Most of the evening was spent in Making food while our French friends were collecting wood to set up Bon-fire which indeed was helpful in cold weather.
We all went to sleep at 9PM while adventure was yet to start in the night, There was a cloudburst in Palchan and rains hit us at Bakar-Thach as well. One of our tent was floating in water and we had to move people in our tent. At one point (around 3 AM) Beas River was roaring so loud that we went to check which way water is going, Thank God it was not coming our way.
Below is how our camp-site was looking in the morning.
Day 2
Previous Night Lessons were quickly applied to create water drains and re-setting up of tents which were coming in the way of water. We were waiting for weather to clear so we can head to Beas Kund while i was worried because of increased flow of water in river streams.
We sent few people down to get some fresh milk from Gujjar (mountain) people, they came back with a news that the bridge which we crossed previous day has been washed away in the rain. It was like a virtual deadlock where we could not move either way.
Mist was continuosly playing, Around 10:30 we thought that weather has been cleared but our hopes were dashed withing 5 mins when clouds thronged the mountains on our way to Beas Kund.
Our Next deadline to start was lunch however it started raining and went on to rain till 5PM until Sun appears. We all decided to walk up to highest possible point till daylight is there and below are some beautiful pictures taken by Meghraj.
Day 3
It was a quiet night but a rainy morning, Rains started around 5 AM and did not give us the chance to come out of our tents till late morning and we decided to pack up and leave amid rains.
Our fist hurdle was the bridge which was blown away and was replaced by Gujjars with two wooden logs which we were not very comfotabble to walk on. Our guide & porters did a wonderfl job of improvising the bridge with stones and provided a support on the bridge with the the help of rope.
All the rivulets which we crossed one day earlier had more water then before and it took us some time to cross them, below is one of the vidoes after crosding one such rivulets -
We reached Solang at 11:30PM and had our lunch before heading to Manali.
Information - if you are planning this trek until Rohtang Tunnel opens, you will need a permission from BRO office. BRO office gives the permission once you have a reference letter from SDM office Manali.
1. First go to SDM office requesting permission for vehicle / walk till Dhundi, They will forward the request to BRO - Forward means, they will write on your letter itself that further action is required from BRO Office.
2. Go to BRO Office in Solang, it is 1 KM from Solang Barricade and show them that (SDM Office) letter to get written permission to cross the Road.
