Chandrashila is a 12,085ft mountain in the Uttarakhand
region of the Himalayas. Deoriatal is a huge sacred lake you pass on the way to
the Chandrashila summit. A group of 25 from all over India hiked it in a
beautiful April summer week. It was actually my third multi day trek in the Himalayas
and my first trek alone! Well, by alone I meant without my parents. I was
accompanied by my friends and their families.
Day 1 - 22/4/2024
We left for Sari (our
base camp) at 7:30am from Rishikesh. I went in a Bolero with Shiva, Swarna
Aunty, Arya, Vindhya and Ramya Aunty. I was very excited because I had my phone
with me to take photos. On the drive alone I must have taken around 80 photos!
We stopped for breakfast at around 8:30am. All the other members of our trek
group, who were travelling in other vehicles, had also stopped there. I had a
cheese sandwich which was full of mayonnaise. Then we started off again. On the
way we saw some rafters pushing their raft into the river.
A little later we
saw two motorboats speeding down the Ganges. There were a lot of forest fires
and landslides which we saw along the way.
We stopped at Devprayag &
Rudraprayag. Devprayag is where the great rivers Alaknanda and Bhagirathi unite
to form the Ganges, and Rudraprayag is where the Alaknanda gets a tributary
from the Mandakini.
When we finally reached
Sari in the evening after a long drive, we had to carry our bags downhill for
around 200m. Arya accidentally took the wrong route but luckily it turned out
to be a shortcut. We were the first people to reach base camp so we went and
called dibs on a tent and the top bunks. The tents were Swiss tents and there
were four bunks in each tent. Shiva, Arya, Vindhya and me all called dibs on
top bunks. Then we went out played a little dodgeball with the other kids and later
went for tea. After tea we decided to explore Sari. Where we met a tiny little
off-white puppy called Jojo. After we came back it was
time for the briefing session. Our trek leader Gagan Uncle conducted the session. It
was time to introduce ourselves. We basically had to say our name, then everyone
says it back e.g. ‘Hi, my name is Oishik.’ Then everyone says ‘Hiiiiiiii
Oishik’. Then I have to say something I like or what I do. We also learnt how to
clean our plates, with sawdust and water, which I already knew from my previous
treks. Then we had dinner and went to sleep. The jalebis which we had for
dessert may have helped in getting some good night’s sleep.
Day 2 - 23/4/24
Today I woke up a little
before 5:30am. We had actually set an alarm for 5:30am but I woke up because I
heard somebody singing. Then the alarm rang and we all woke up. We had
breakfast at 7:30am. Before that we were brushing, chatting, making our beds
etc. Then at 8:00am we started getting ready, warming up, learning how to tie
our laces, learning how to wear our backpack. By the time we started it was
8:40am.
Then we finally started climbing. Today was 4km. We took frequent breaks. Most of them were catchup breaks where we kept waiting for the others to catch up. But we had two designated breaks, one at Ropini Bugyal (a viewpoint), and the other a snack break.
We finally reached Deoriatal - our first camp. It was 300m
ahead of a lake called Deoriatal, hence the name.
This campsite was rented
by IndiaHikes. Just before our trek started the forest department had made new
rules about where you could camp. So IndiaHikes had to shut down their original
campsite and quickly rented this campsite. We had Swiss tents here and were
shown how to save water and use the toilets.
Shiva, Arya and me didn’t like the
bio toilets at the camp so we decided to make a boy’s bathroom in the woods. We
chose a tree, behind which was our bathroom. We made a path up to it and
stacked up a pile of moss to soak up the pee. But unfortunately, it began to
stink, so we ditched it.
After snacks we rested a
little, played around, saw gorgeous views of the mountains, then went for
dinner. After dinner we played a game of storytelling. One person had to say a
line then the next person had to repeat that line and add his/her own. Then we
were shown how to get into our liners and sleeping bags. All this didn’t apply
to me because I had brought my own sleeping bag. In the night Shiva and I made
a pact whoever needed to use the washroom would wake the other person up and we
both would go.
Day 3 - 24/4/2024
Today we had to trek 10km. So after breakfast we all got a packed lunch of aloo and chapati and trail mix as snacks. We had breakfast and left immediately.
Once we reached the
camp site we did cool down exercises and were shown the bathrooms. We also
learned about how there were foxes there. For snacks that day we had white
sauce pasta! After snacks all the kids played Uno Flip. Then we had dinner
and went to sleep. That night I had a very disturbed sleep, getting up to go to
the bathroom twice.
Day 4 - 25/4/2024
Apparently, we would see silver oaks as we went at higher
altitude. Our third camp was also summit camp, Baniya Kund. Once we reached,
we were treated to a very discouraging site. The camp banner was planted right
behind a huge circle of bones!
Also, there were mules everywhere along with a
dog called Flocky/Foxy/Floppy and a lot of monkeys. As soon as we reached our
camp site we had lunch. After that we had free time where we played cricket! While we were having our briefing for the summit day and tea, a bunch of
monkeys broke into a tent and stole stuff like trail mix along with toilet
paper! We had dinner at 6:30pm and went to sleep by 7:00pm.
Summit day - 26/4/2024
I woke up at 11:00 pm. It was still Thursday. The wakeup call was at midnight but Shiva and I wanted to get ready early. So,
we woke up, folded our sleeping bags, used the bathroom and went for breakfast.
After breakfast we each had to collect two mayonnaise sandwiches for a snack. At 12:55am sharp we started with me in the lead. We stopped for frequent
breaks. We reached Chopta around 2:30am. As we entered Chopta we saw the sacred
bells but we could not ring them because we were told beforehand by Gagan uncle to not ring the bells as everyone would be asleep. Darsh and I kept talking about IPL and FC
mobile to keep our spirits up. There was a dog in the balcony of a house which
barked its head off on seeing us. On the way up we met two dogs called Kalu and
Max.
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Then we took a group photo and went back down. but only until Chopta.
From
there we took a car back to Baniya Kund. Then we had lunch and went back to Sari.
There we wanted to get a good tent so we took the shortcut again. Unfortunately,
this time we took the wrong one and had to backtrack to take the right one. Luckily
for us, we were still the first ones to reach! We got a tent called Woodpecker.
After that we had snacks followed by our debriefing. All of us bought t-shirts.
We didn’t get the magnets, which was a little disheartening. But I think more
than me my parents were looking forward to the magnets!
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Then after dinner as dessert we got gulab jamuns and chocolate marble cake.
It was time to sleep now as we had to leave at 5:30am tomorrow for Rishikesh.
Day 6 - 27/4/2024
Today we had to wake up at 5:00am because we had to leave by 5:30am so we got up, folded our duvets and left. Then we got into our car and drove to Rishikesh. We stopped for breakfast on the way and had half an aloo paratha each. My parents and sister had started from Rishikesh towards Devprayag to welcome us back.
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