Nothing goes as per original plan in hills ;) . As agreed yesterday, my guide Arjun did not report to me at 6.00 and finaly I had to get hold of him by barginb ginto his house. to my surpise, he had reported sick and was doubtful of coming with me.
What a gr888 day to start the trek !!!
Now, we thought of selecting other people around, but there were none to be found in such short time. After many rounds of discussions, I finally agreed to pursuade him to accompany me.
Hence, we had a quick breakfast of maggie and set forth for the loong trek to Nagling(around 16 kms )
We crossed the villge of Dar and there was this beautiful bugyal in the left hand side. Just as we crossed the river, the wonderful sight of the snow covered himalays came on left hand which was amazing. The sight of the lush green bugyals and peaks made me run upto them ;)
We turned right and were treading along the left hand side of the dhauli Ganga river .There was this high wall of mountains on the right of the river . We could see some distant peaks beyond the high wall at times !
Now comes the little scary part of trek. This is the narrow goat track with huge drop.
This is the dense jungle along the route from Bungling to Sela.
The entire trek is full of the narrow water streams. I was told by my guide , that this route id difficult to trek till June as the glaceirs do not melt till that time. I guess this inaccesibility and remoteness is one of the reasons for the non poppularity of darma as a trekking destination. But that the reason why this region is so beautiful .
I am trying not slip from a huge rock on the way ;)
We had planned to reach Baaling by the night .So we were hurrying all the way !
We had a quick lunch at Urthiling where luckily we could find the shop still open. It was so cold sitting beside the river in the run down shop and having the dal - chawal ( I still dont know what I was eating !). I guess the exhaustion made me forget all that ! These are small little things which give so much of joy while trekking in the hills.
We reached little late than we had anticipated to sela and had just crossed the villege when the ITBP jawan came running to tell us that we were not permitted to move beyond the check past. Then came the frustrating time with the ITBP post when we were told that we could not go further as we did not have the permit. I was told that one does not need permit till Dugtu villege. But, ITBP was adamant and they sent a telex message to their headquarters at Pithoragarh seeking permission.
We stayed in the only hotel which was so comfortable I could not even imagine. We slept in a good and clean bed with rajai and it was so peaceful as night was being echoed from the running river water !
DAY FOUR : SELA TO DUGTU
I was surprised that I had a comfortable and good sleep and I was releived that the hotel had decent toilet facalities.
We got up in the anticiption that the ITBP will be able to give permission to us to move forward. Damn the ITBP , they did not allow Jan to go forward as he did not have permit and I was allowed to go. I gave Jan farewell with a heavy heart and moved forward waiting to reach Dugtu by evening.
The person who runs the hotel seemed very helping and friendly. I was told that Sela is the last villege in the darma which does not do migration. All villagers beyond Sela , come down to their another house with cattle and food to lower altitudes.
Trek from Sela to We were walking beside the river and its a simple trek .
The real steep ascent started from this point where we could see the villege Nagling from a distance.
We reached Nagling and had chai at the shop. There is a huge glacier ( 2 kms from villege ) coming down from hills near the villege. I was compelled to go and have a dekko at it, but did not have the time. You can see the glacier hills from the pic I took from the chai shop.
There is a very interesting tale attached according ot which the huge white streaks in the hills are marks of the huge snake which was killed by a sage several yeags ago by beating him against the hills !!
Beyond Nagling there is straight path and then descent till Baaling where we had our lunch ,tea and noodles.
The actual darma valley is visible from Baling. The river is running in the form of a gorge with huge fields on both sides of the river.
This is the beautiful Darma valley from Baling.
There is continupus descent from Baaling and after a curve , the great himalayas come in to view. The high snow covered mountains in the right of the river area treat to the eyes.
I am told beyond these mountains is the Kuthi valley.
We finally managed to reach Dugtu. Oh my god, it was such a relief !You can see my guide taking rest just before the Sher Singh shop.
We had the garama garam chai at Sher singh shop. He even managed to give us Villege panchayat rest house room which was so clean. Sher singh suggested that we take a 2 km trek to Villege Daantu and the the Shiva temple on top of the hill. Although we were tired of the trel all day, still the hill stop temple seemed challenging and it could provide good views of the Panch achuli.
I was too excited to run upto the bridge and view the sun setting on the great Panch chuli hills !
This is the view from Daantu villege and on the right is the Dugtu and across the river on left is Bon.
We came across the villege ladies who seemed very friendly. The lady on the left kept asking me if I knew her son who lived in Hydrabad ! I wanted to say yes( as it would have given he rhappiness), but then couldnt lie to such an elderly lady.
It was an unfogetting sight to see the sun setting behind the Panchchuli peaks. Although, it was little cloudy as the sun set,but the huge glacier was too beautiful.
This is the view from the Shiva temple towards tibet on the other side of the valley towards Sipu and Tedang .
I wanted to go further to Anchari taal beyong Sipu , but did not have permit and ITBP would have stopped me at tedang post. I was told that tedang is the last ITBP post . There is another ITBP post at bedang and Dawe ( last post before Tibet ) , but both are vacated in OCt. and only Tedang is occupied for the entire winter. God know how our jawans battle the cold in the region all 12 months . I guess its love for country and sheer courage whcih maked them survive in such harsh winters.
This is my guide at Daantu villege.In the background one can see the Panchuli peaks and the strem of river coming from Panchuli glaceir.
After sunset it was time of the moon to come over the himalayas ! This photo moon is coming over the other side of valley (from Sinla pass , the Chota Kaislash and Jolingkong).
