Across the Jalsu

"Uncle! Uncle!", the shouts were shrill and loud and full of excitement. I glanced up the trail and saw the kids swarming around a large boulder embedded into the grassy slope. One of our guides was with them and he was poking around in a small crevice in the rock with a twig.

"We have discovered a new species of snake.....! Come take a picture and send it to National Geographic!" I knew I was in trouble: a couple of days earlier I had confidently stated to them that serpents were rare in the higher altitudes of the Himalaya and if they actually did find one they might be rewarded by some elite international organisation like the Smithsonian Institute for their discovery.

We were a couple of kilometres above Hadsar on our way back from Duggi. I scrambled up the slope, asked them to step aside and began to probe the shadowy depths of the crevice inside which the snake was ensconced. After a few attempts, and helped by the curiosity of the reptile, my lens picked up an image. The children cheered. We left the nervous snake to its sinuous adjustments and resumed our journey.

But the topic was not yet closed. Gavin walked beside me and asked very earnestly,"Uncle, how much money do you think National Geographic would be willing to pay for this picture of a newly discovered snake?" The question threw me off, but I hazarded a guess anyway, "I'd say $ 10,000 at least!" I was going by the lavish production qualities of the magazine and its international standing.

"How much would that be in rupees?" Gavin wanted to know. When I converted the money into the then prevailing exchange rate, the kids let out whoops of joy. "We'll be rich!" they shouted and went prancing down the trail.

Alas, we had not really discovered a new serpent on the planet, so the children had to be content with the ten rupees that they charged us for putting up an impromptu play that evening when we reached Hadsar! While everyone took the next day off I set off on the trail to Manimaheshwar lake. The trail was well signposted, with helpful distance markers and even more helpful exhortations for the faltering pilgrim!

"There is strength in devotion"

"The Almighty's Mill turns slowly but grinds very fine"

In spite of the signs, I did not quite make it up to the lake, but had to turn around at the spot ravaged by the passage of hundreds of pilgrims who make the annual pilgrimage to the lake. I could see the trail snaking up to the ridge behind which lay the sacred waters. There were permanent platforms which had been carved into the slopes to accommodate temporary shelters and tea stalls.

Turning my eyes to the ground, I found relief : there were wildflowers everywhere, and my ears were soothed by the reassuring sound of waterfalls cascading over rock.

That evening's entertainment at Hadsar was organised by the kids : they put up an impromptu skit for which they extracted a princely fee of ten rupees from us. Some of that income was used to buy bidis (a cigarette made from the tendu leaf) from a little shop and I caught them smoking and coughing and giggling all at the same time as they tried this new experience! I wondered what they would have done with the big bucks from National Geographic if we had really discovered a new species of snake!

The cast exits the stage! L to R : Tim, Gavin, Sanal, Adele.

The plot, as I recall, revolved around an itinerant street entertainer with his performing monkey and it was conceived and directed by Adele, who has since gone on to make theatre her profession in Canada!

After this performance, we were ready to move on to Phase II of our trek : to hike over the Jalsu Pass ( 3600 m / 11,800 ft ). We had a jeep drop us off at the small village of Deol in the main Ravi valley  where we spent the night in a room kindly offered to us by a lady who owned a little shop on the road. She absolutely refused any form of payment for her kindness. This form of universal generosity that characterises most of the hill people is what draws me back again and again to the Himalaya - the old fashioned values which are not governed by filthy lucre!

At Deol, we spent the night in the house on the right

The walk from Deol to Surai was quite pleasant, many times in the company of shepherds and their flocks and it was enlivened by a steep climb up to a ridge before dropping down again. The evening's entertainment was provided by Franklyn's sleeping bag rolling off the hillside as we unpacked to set up camp. Fortunately for him, it came to a stop just above a raging torrent and could be retrieved.

Trail between Deol and Surai

The camp at Surai

Tim finds the spotlight at Surai...

Adele became my faithful camera assistant after my near fatal fall at the Yara Got campsite -  http://accidentaltrekker.blogspot.ca/2012/08/life-begins-at-10000-feet.html . She cheerfully carried my spare lenses while I hiked with one arm in a sling. The team made it to the Jalsu Pass and we posed for the mandatory photos before beginning the long descent on the south. Gavin left his camera on the pass and hurried down the trail. Hours later, and a couple of thousand feet lower, he realised his loss and was thrown into a panic. He was sure his parents would chastise him for the loss and he was ready to climb back up the slopes to retrieve it. He had started back up the trail when we stopped him - I pulled out the camera from one of the pockets on my backpack and handed it to him: the sense of relief on his face was quite something to see!

Approaching Jalsu Pass

Climbing up to the pass

Mandatory photo on Jalsu Pass
Standing L to R : Margaret, Franklyn , Aloke and our two guides
Sitting L to R : Adele, Sanal, Gavin, Timothy

I sensed an immediate change in the environment : the cool dry air of the northern pastures gave way to the rather more moist air on the southern slopes of these hills. The soft, pale lighter shades of rhododendron changed to  saturated crimson and a tropical  green began to overshadow the alpine shades. We found a great swimming hole later in the afternoon and a dip in the cool waters refreshed our bodies and our hearts.

We camped on a field at Parai where the only tea shop served up fresh eggs while the children amused themselves by chasing the chickens down the rutted path outside.

More excitement followed the next evening at Uttarala where we foolishly pitched our tents, on the advice (which we should have ignored) of our guides, right below the head wall of a concrete dam holding back millions of gallons of water in a reservoir upstream: I dread to think about the consequences if there had been an earth tremor or quake......

As if camping in harm's way was not enough, the boys decided to hide the little steel tumbler containing the caretaker's chai while he was busy explaining the controls of the dam machinery to Franklyn and me. When the man discovered his loss, he was incensed and chased the kids right down the walkway on the dam wall! Profuse apologies later, we managed to redeem both the tumbler and the situation and grounded the lads in their tents. Adele came into our tent later to mediate on their behalf. More impressed by her negotiating skills than the lack of remorse on the part of the guilty, we agreed to lift the curfew with some clauses attached!

Thus ended a memorable mountain holiday. All that was left was to walk down the road and hop into a bus and then make our way back to Bhagsu, above McLeodganj. Bhagsu was home to Narendra, a mountain guide and climbing instructor I had come to know during an expedition 8 months earlier in the Kumaon Himalaya. He invited us for a simple but sumptuous dinner prepared for us by his wife and we were pleased to meet with his family.

Narendra and his family

The mandatory visit to the monastery at McLeodganj followed. Unfortunately, the Dalai Lama was away at the time but we did get a sense of how a government in exile has functioned successfully for over 50 years and how a people displaced from their homeland in the high mountain plateau of Tibet have coped in a host community.

With a heartfelt Om Mane Padme Hum ("Hail to the Jewel in the Lotus") we bid farewell to the mountains.

Adele and Franklyn cross a stream after descending the Jalsu Pass

Margaret stops to chat with a Gaddi woman

The Good Shepherd ensuring his little lambs don't get wet!

All creatures great and small sleeping the sleep of the just!

Butterfly spotted between Duggi and Kugti village

Kugti Kalling

The first day's walk towards the village of Kugti turned out to be very pleasant and not very demanding for either the lungs or the legs. Which was a very good thing : the 12 km trail that we had to cover wound through shady conifers and ran for most of the way along an enchanting river, bubbling merrily down the valley in a friendly, welcoming manner. We meandered up the path, stopping often to admire the sparkling waters as they swirled and swept around and over beautifully patterned rocks and boulders. Even though we were hemmed in by high ridges on either side of the valley, the sun shone bright and warm from a blue sky : we couldn't have chosen a better day to begin our hike.

If the kids had had their way, this Hadsar dog would have joined our group!

Adele ( L ) and Sanal ( R ) flank Margaret on a bridge 

Small stands of irises appeared on the grassy banks flanking the trail. Stray villagers stopped to chat and point out the way. We paused at points of picturesque beauty and photographic possibilities and the children amused themselves by throwing stones into the river. Though born in the post modern world, they were happy to make do without the appurtenances and devices that seem to have become a part of everyone's garb : we carried no cellphones, no Ipods, no radios and no laptops. We were blissfully disconnected from the daily chatter and anxieties of the outside world. Best of all, it did not make us unhappy or discontented.

The walk along the Budhil Nala to Kugti was idyllic

We walked in a loose group, each at his or own pace, the adults ensuring that the kids were never out of sight. In this haphazard fashion, listening to the whisper of the wind in the pines and the musical roar of the river, Sanal and I found ourselves suddenly in the center of Kugti. There was a cobbled square in the middle of some houses and a little store selling basic groceries. Thankfully, the shopkeeper also sold chai. This, as my friends know, I can never resist. Throw a chai stall onto a remote Himalayan trail and you've succeeded in halting my onward progress! The afternoon had advanced well into the evening by now, the misty blue light filtered through the conifers on the surrounding ridges and shot shafts of ethereal light which bounced off the slate roofs of the houses. I contemplated my serene surroundings as I sipped my cup of chai and waited for the rest of the group to catch up. A half hour went by, a quarter of an hour went by, and still there was no sign of Margaret or Franklyn or any of the other kids. Our guides too seemed to have gone missing.

Fearing a mishap, Sanal and I backtracked to the edge of the village. I needn't have feared : our guides had decided to set up camp for the night in the compound of the village school, which consisted of a modest little shed and a small grassy lawn in front of the verandah. We pitched a couple of tents and were very soon settled in. Some of the local children came to make our acquaintance and it was interesting to watch the tentative efforts that some of the bolder ones made to befriend our four city bred brats. Very soon the ice was broken and we had a whole bunch of kids darting in and out between the tents and the school building, squealing and laughing their way to a brief friendship. Darkness dictated that the Kugti children all go back to their homes.

Camp on the Kugti school yard

The next day dawned bright and sunny as well and we were soon trudging across a wooden bridge spanning a torrent on the far side of Kugti. The path now swung to the left and gradually began to gain height. The vista opened up and in a matter of an hour or so some glittering peaks beckoned us up the valley. I had no idea what their names were, or even if they had any. But when we stopped for a breather and glanced back at the way we had come, a striking looking massif soared into the sky across the valleys and I had no doubt in my mind that this was the famous Manimahesh Kailash, ( 5655 metres / 18,500ft )  which towered over the lake of Manimahesh where thousands thronged to every year in a pilgrimage in August. Though of modest height by Himalayan standards, the peak dominated the skyline and exuded a character of stern aloofness, buttressed by sharp ridges and crenallations plunging vertically into the haze of the valleys below.

Kugti

We ourselves were now confronted with a stern vertical ascent to the eyrie of a wonderful little temple perched high above. By the time we had huffed and puffed our way up to this beautifully carved wooden structure, it was lunch time. We sat on the stone ramparts of the courtyard eating the lunch we had packed in the morning before leaving Kugti. The wind dried the sweat from our bodies and the orange triangular flag fluttered briskly from the long pole it was attached to. The setting was perfect and had it not been for the ugly graffiti defacing many of the walls of the temple, it would have been easy to succumb to its divine charms and believe that this was truly a stop en route to heaven.

The peak of Manimahesh Kailash provides an impressive backdrop to the temple

Ugly Graffiti desecrates a place of divine worship...in spite of the request to desist printed so boldly.

Leaving the temple behind and winding our way up through a series of slopes we came across a meadow overwhelmed with wild irises : this was certainly a branch of paradise. Feeling like pilgrims now, we kept on climbing up the trail till we reached the grazing grounds of Duggi. We pitched the tents on a grassy meadow next to a bubbling brook lined with yellow buttercups and heaved a sigh of relief. This was going to be our base for a couple of days while we explored the area and checked out the trail leading up to the Kugti pass (5040 m) which crossed the Pir Panjal range into Lahul.

Adele, Franklyn and Margaret in the field of irises

Yaks graze in the background at Duggi

We lit and gathered round a campfire that evening, nursing a feeling of well being and expectation. We were surrounded by big mountain slopes all around and we looked forward to walking around the meadows and side streams over the next few days.

Rhododendrons growing wild on a hillside.

Manimahesh Kailash - 5655 metres / 18,500 ft.

Dhauladhar 2000 - Any Excuse Will Do!

This is the way it is with a die hard mountain lover : you look at a map, you pick an area that interests you, you begin your research, you convince yourself (that is the easiest part) that this is one valley or one trail that you must absolutely do, then you cast around for an excuse that will stand up to censure in the eyes of your disbelieving friends who are probably shaking their heads and saying, "Oh no, not again, he's got that crazy gleam in his eye..."

In the summer of 2000 I found the perfect excuse to round up my niece and nephew for a child-friendly trek in the Dhauladhar ranges of Himachal Pradesh. Timothy, then 12 years old and his sister Adele, a little over ten years of age, were migrating to Canada with their parents in a couple of months. I played the genial uncle and said,"How would you like to trek in the Himalaya before you leave India for good?". Neither of them had ever seen the Himalaya and they were excited. With them on my side, it didn't take much to convince their parents who probably couldn't believe that someone could be foolish enough to make such a patently silly offer. I had barely finished speaking when they yelled in unison,"Take them!" They had another little baby to worry about and tons of packing to do, so my proposal must have come as an answer to their prayers...

Adele Noronha

Timothy Noronha

Our son Sanal was the third kid, he was slightly younger than Adele. He was the only one who had trekked in the Himalaya : at age seven we had taken him to the Pindari Glacier  in Kumaon. Before that, when he was three and a half years old, he had made it up to the pastures of Lalanti  (14,000) , below the Charang Ghati pass in Kinnaur, mostly on the shoulders of Margaret. Gavin, a friend of this threesome, made up the quartet. Margaret and I had never looked after more than one child, since that was all we had. I decided we needed reinforcements and induced my friend Franklyn to come along. He was sceptical at first. He is a confirmed bachelor and the prospect of keeping an eye on four high energy souls who might combine into an unmanageable force was daunting. But in the end, the lure of trekking in an area neither of us had ever been to was hard to resist. So there we were, four kids and three adults, bustling about on the platform at Bombay Central, looking for our berths in the August Kranti Rajdhani Express bound for Nizamuddin in New Delhi.

Gavin DSouza

Sanal Surin

Our friend Rajesh Bathija had applied his artistic talents to the T shirts we wore. "Dhauladhar.com" was emblazoned on the front. Of course the domain name was never registered and the website didn't really exist, but it seemed to somehow merge the emerging ethos that these kids belonged to with the ancient art of just plain walking in the hills! The shirts elicited a lot of enquiries from our co-passengers and the kids kept up the pretence. Thankfully, wi-fi did not exist along the rail corridors of India then and smart phones had yet to become the norm, so no one could really test the veracity of our claims.

Rajesh painted a Quick Reference Map on the back of the T-shirts! We decided later to cross the Jalsu pass further east in the Dhauladhar instead of tackling the Indrahar Pass, as shown in the sketch.

Debbie and Quentin, Gavin's parents, looked half anxious and half relieved as the train sounded its horn and began to move. Hazel and Cecil, the other parents, mirrored the same expressions, glimpsed briefly through the tinted glass as we gathered speed and left Bombay behind. It was the month of May and the airconditioning was a relief as we settled down for the long ride. "He who goes to the hills goes to his mother," says an old Hindu proverb. I thought to myself, "Here we are, certainly going to the hills, but three of these children will have to settle for Margaret as their mother for the next couple of weeks!"

The 18 hour journey to the capital was fairly smooth, once we got used to the constant giggling emanating from the upper berths as the kids made up and played all kinds of games. These games were a source of constant delight and merriment for them even if they appeared inane to us. Night fell, the compartment became quiet, the children fell asleep with the exhaustion of excitement, and the train hurtled northwards.

Late in the morning, we bundled the children out of the train and onto the platform. Our many kit bags and rucksacks followed. Since our next train departed from Old Delhi railway station late in the night, we decided to wait out the day at Nizammuddin. We stocked ourselves with a pack of chilled bottled water, arranged the luggage like a little stockade where we herded the brats in, and passed the time of day discouraging beggars and touts and coolies. The kids initially found entertainment in listening to the announcements over the PA system : each announcement regarding the trains arriving and departing from the various platforms was preceded by a very loud two-note audio signal. The children would collapse into heaps of laughter at this and eagerly wait for the next one. Their mirth was almost uncontrollable. I looked at Margaret and Franklyn and we all shook our heads; did we seriously think we could shepherd this boisterous foursome through the ridges and valleys of the Dhauladhar? Had we perhaps taken on more than we could handle?

We needn't have worried. As the afternoon wore on, the oven like heat of May in Delhi soon stunned us into a stupor and gradually the youngsters fell silent. When we judged the sun was losing its intensity, we engaged two taxis and transferred over to the chaos that was Old Delhi railway station. We had reservations in the overnight train to Pathankot, but some local commuters thought otherwise. Our compartment was crammed with office workers and others going back to their homes two hours out of Delhi. My son could not fathom the pressures of modern urban life in India and was almost in tears when four men occupied the upper berth he was supposed to sleep in and sat with their legs dangling above our noses. They were loud and uncouth and their crude conversation centred around the male and female genitals and their choice of words was injudicious, to say the least. It did not seem to bother them that there was a lady and four small children in the confined space of a second class railway compartment. We all sighed in relief when their destination appeared outside the windows and they disappeared into the heat of the summer night.

Pathankot railway station, by contrast to the one we had departed from, appeared to be neat and tidy and organised. We were impressed when we did not have to haggle for a taxi to Dalhousie, 80 km away. There was a Taxi men's Union booth where we purchased our ticket, a taxi was assigned to us and away we went. We were soon out of this neat cantonment town with its wide avenues lined with ancient banyan trees painted with the white and ochre bands so typical of such places. The road began to climb towards the foothills and the succulent yellow bunches of  "amaltas" (Indian laburnum) provided welcome relief to our travel weary eyes. Slowly and imperceptibly, the temperature began to drop with each hill contour that we ascended, the vegetation was changing, a few rhododendron trees began to appear and we could sense that our journey was coming to an end soon.

Dalhousie is perched between six to nine thousand feet at the western edge of the Dhauladhar mountain range and is one of the most charming hill stations that I have ever visited. Twelve years ago, it appeared to be far less crowded and touristy than say, Manali, Shimla, Mussoorie, Naini Tal or Darjeeling. It also boasts the closest snowline to the Indian plains anywhere on the subcontinent. The walls of the taxi booking office in Dalhousie were adorned with framed photographs of the town under six feet of snow, and cottages with icicles dangling from their roof gutters.

Instead of snow, we had rhododendron trees lending a splash of colour all over the town, and the pretty pinkish white flowers of the chestnut trees swayed  high above us in the cool breeze, perfectly cupped amongst the glossy dark green leaves. We checked into the venerable old timbers of the Himachal Pradesh Tourist cottage and ordered some chai. As we sat in the wicker chairs on the veranda looking at the distant ridges which held so much promise, there was a clap of thunder and the mountains reverberated with deep and distant echoes which lapped at our eardrums like waves on a lonely shore. Dark storm clouds soon filled the horizon, electric blue lightning rent the heavens apart, the setting sun sank like a fiery crimson orb and hail began to pelt the tin roof of the cottage. We were jubilant. This was exactly the sort of welcome you need when you go to the hills. Our senses came alive, the perspiration on our skin evaporated and with it all the sordid memories of the train journey. This magical transition, from the hot and dusty plains of a baking summer to the cool of the conifers is one of the most enjoyable elements of Himalayan trekking in a country where most of the landmass swelters in tropical excess.

I didn't know about the others, but I was certainly going to my mother! Since mothers are mothers, she insisted that we have dinner first. So we sat around the table in the modest dining room and feasted on the vegetables and rotis dished up by the cook and looked out through the glass paned windows at the thunderstorm as it slowly withered away. It was time to put the kids to sleep and look at our maps and plan the days ahead.

Phase one of the plan required that we get to the road head at Hadsar from where we would walk for two days to get to the pastures of Duggi. We would spend a couple of days here, exploring the vicinity, or just chilling out as the mood dictated. I hoped to hike to the bottom of the Kugti pass as well. We would then reverse our steps back to Hadsar and prepare for Phase Two which would  gradually lead us over the Jalsu Pass and back to the Kangra valley where we would make our way to Dharamshala and McLeodganj, home of the Dalai Lama. This part of the western Himalaya is buttressed from the plains of India first by the Dhauladhar range as the southernmost outlier, beyond which flows the Ravi river, then the Pir Panjal and behind these two rise the peaks of the Great Himalaya after the great trench of the Chenab Valley. The Dhauladhar and the Pir Panjal are pierced by a number of passes which allow access to the separate river valleys. These passes have been used for centuries by the gaddis, shepherds from Kangra who take their flocks of sheep and goats to the succulent pastures of the high mountains in the summer months. Trekking amongst these mountains and valleys via the traditional paths and seeing the shepherd's way of life is a visual treat, with the usual free dividends for the spirit and the soul that these undertakings normally generate.

As a little acclimatisation exercise, we decided to take the kids up a local hill. As we passed a little square, a street artiste/snake charmer was preparing for his act, prepping up the audience with a non stop harangue about the habits of the dangerous and poisonous snakes that he was going to show them and the plucky little mongoose who would do battle with them. The children wanted to stop and watch the main event. We hung around and waited for the performance to begin. We waited almost an hour and nothing happened. The artiste's young assistant moved around in the little circle of people that was beginning to form, dangling a couple of reptiles from his fingers like a rosary, occasionally frightening the crowd by swinging the snakes close to their faces. In the background, the loud and strident voice of the presenter continued to build up the anticipation; the mongoose could be seen wriggling impatiently inside the little hemp sack that he was confined in. He was itching to sink his teeth into the infernal snakes!

But the show was not going to start in any hurry, the artiste was sizing up his audience. "Not enough bodies," he must have said to himself, "this is not going to generate enough money....I have to wait a little longer".

Finally, even the children got tired of this non-starter and we dragged them away up through the upper parts of town, past the Dalhousie Public School where fresh faced students with red blazers were milling around during their recess. We found a track which wound its way up through the cool deodar forests and found ourselves below the air force radar station on top of the ridge. The kids thanked me for the uphill slog by pelting snowballs scooped out of an old bank of snow below the radar station. We stopped at a little tea stall before heading downhill and hopped onto a local bus which brought us back into town comfortably.

The food shopping for our little expedition was completed that same evening and a visit to the Tibetan market provided extra warm clothing for the children. The evening was rounded off with a tasty meal of momos at a small eatery. The business of packing was completed late at night, a hired jeep took us the next morning to Bharmour via Khajjiar and Chamba. Another little walk above Bharmour provided the kids with some entertainment, glissading on some old snow, playing cricket with the local lads, and cuddling a little lamb. The next day we threw the boys at the back of the Matador truck, together with the luggage, and drove off to Hadsar, where the real walking would begin. Finally, Dhauladhar.com was live and on stream!

Bharmour

One of the many temples in Bharmour

It is amazing how much fun a little old snow can provide young children! Sanal tries out glissading.

Cricket in Bharmour

The view from the cricket ground!

Next Stop : Hadsar