Triund 1 “First Trek of Life”

When everything feels like an uphill struggle, Just think of the view from the top

The above lines are true at some point when we corporate workers try to work day and night to achieve our goals, which are unknown, still, we are running in this rat race.

So to get a better top view of this world, I suddenly planned the Diwali holiday to be spent in the mountains. As I had a few earlier bike trips to Himachal recently so my next plan is to do trekking.

Most of my colleagues have gone home this Diwali but my plan was quite unique and obviously, I want to make it unique. So I decided to plan a trip to Triund.

Triund is in some sense a place from which you can start your first trekking journey. It’s above Mcleodganj hill station. My earlier Mcleodganj trip with Deepak Sharma was quite good for getting good photographs. So this hope is continuing.

So on 30th October 2016, I started at morning 4 am from my room at Hoshiarpur. The path was completely dark as I came out of town. But I was assured that I will not be harmed in any case because Himachal Pradesh is the safest state I have ever traveled to after Punjab and Haryana.

In the next 4 hours, I crossed Dharmashala and reached Mcleodganj. There I found out that the shoe sole of my right foot is coming out, which was a terrible thing, as I was about to start trekking. I checked for a cobbler and asked him to make this shoe ready for trekking for at least the next 2 days, after that, I can buy a new one.

After fixing it, I continued my bike ride towards the trekking start point named Dharamkot. I parked my bike and registered my name in the checkpoint register for some security purpose.

Now after so much hassle and early rising from bed, the trek started. It was 11 am in the morning. I was carrying a big backpack in which I carried lots of wooled clothes as I had no idea what was on the top of the hill.

Slowly moving towards the top with different types of fauna covering the mountains. I earlier thought that trekking is not for everybody, but here people of all age groups are available.

As I gained altitude, the beauty enhances itself multiple folds. The mix of green-yellow fauna pleases the eyes to a level that cannot be saturated.

As a bachelor I also encountered few girls, and to show my macho style, I tried to walk like its nothing to me. I know that’s a stupid act, but this age is meant for this type of activity, so I did it and enjoyed it.

In the meantime, I also helped few trekkers who are old for supporting them to climb few rocky steps. felt good from inside.

Soon after around 4 hours trek, I reached the grassy hilltop location, covered with clouds all around, and tents at many locations.

After feeling the awesomeness of the cloudy view, I hired a tent from a dealer named Ranjit. At this location getting a tent and food doesn’t seem pricy because more valuable feelings and sights are worth it. Ranjit soon also helped me to get a guide who can help me to reach Lahesh cave the next day.

I put my luggage in the tent and started roaming the location. There was a real network issue at this location, which means no network is working. Thanks to the newly launched Jio sim, which supports me to contact my family on this Diwali evening, but only from a specific location.

I met with few new friends Leela and Zubina who will be on my friend list forever.

Soon the Dhauladhar mountain peak is peeking above the clouds with a thin ray of sunset light. slowly and slowly the clouds cleared and the visibility of the great Dhauladhar ranges in front of all of us.

But the view doesn’t stay long as the sunset is covering the lights in the border of the horizon.

Now the next level of beauty started, it is the new moon day, The Amavasya. At the top of the hill, there is no air pollution and no unnecessary light from the city, the sky literally looks like a huge junk of stars, and with naked eyes, you can feel the glimpse of the milky way.

And in my process of taking shots of the milky way makes me meet my new photography friend Mohit Pawar, but the best part of our friendship is that in this darkness we didn’t get a chance to see each other nor do we know how we look. We together took many sky shots of the galaxy.

nearby 9 or 10 pm, we had our dinner of dal (Pulses), Chawal (Rice), and achaar (Pickle) to fill our empty stomach which got emptied while trekking.

Now it’s time to sleep in the tent provided to us. It is the first time I am experiencing the sleeping way in a sleeping bag. As the temperature falls to zero degrees, so they provided us two sleeping bags to get away from the cold.

This is a new experience in my life which I always dreamt of. The trekking path to Triund and meeting new friends and most importantly the view which every explorer want to experience.

This may be my start to explore myself as a trekker but frankly speaking, when everything feels like an uphill struggle, just think of the view from the top.

The view of cities from the top is like a God-type feeling. The aura of no network and no internet in the city felt like your like is empty. But at this place, this new act of kindness by hills to stop the unnecessary charm of digitalization with social media felt like a peace of mind. Really at this peace level, its was like we are at the top of our Nirvana and we are viewing and imagining peoples and like from the top.