Trip turned into an adventure…

Ashish Sharma
Jul 27, 2017 · 6 min read

Today I am gonna share with you one of the most scariest trips of my life. I am basically from Himachal Pradesh where we can find beautiful scenery, hills, mountains etc, so whenever I go to my hometown, I always have this curiosity to do something fun and exciting. So this was a journey to a temple called HIMANI CHAMUNDA where the only way to reach is via trekking. The trek starts from JIA village and is 7.4 kilometers one way. The ascent will take around 3–4 hours, while descent can be completed in 2–3 hours. The view from the top is breathtaking and it is a must take journey. There is only one water source after 10–15 minutes of start and then at the temple, so in between you have to use your resources carefully. It was around June, 2014 when we decided to take this trek, I actually went on this trek in 2013 too so I was pretty sure that I can do it again but the nature had other plans.

This pic was taken right before we started our journey, my uncle dropped us at the starting point of the trek, from there we were on our own!!!

Our plan was actually cancelled many times before due to the bad weather on the top. Even on the day of trek, we all lost hope as it was cloudy in the afternoon and so we started watching movie on laptop. As movie ended, to our amaze it was a sunny eve around 4 o’clock. We quickly packed everything and were off to our journey to HIMANI CHAMUNDA. My Chachu (Mr Kamlesh) dropped us, told us to trek safely and take care of ourselves.

These are the first steps towards HIMANI CHAMUNDA.

So we started our journey around 5:30 in the evening, our start was good, we were clicking photos, enjoying the moments, singing, dancing and what not. There are various points on the trek which you can use as your milestones to complete, for eg. There are 4 solar lights, some shops, some huts made of stones etc. We had our snacks around 7–8 pm and it was pitch black now so we had our lights on. We had to use everything carefully as if you run out of commodities/essentials then there is no one to help you, even if there are other trekkers, everyone has to complete their journey. Till then everything was going as per the plan, we had to reach one HANUMAN temple where there are different huts, where we can rest for the night and we can continue our journey in the morning. So now it was 11 pm and suddenly we saw all our plans going into the drain!!!

Enjoying the moments.

What we realized then was that, there are clouds everywhere around us but not above as. My brother, Akhil suggested that it will not rain then as we had a clear sky so we should continue our journey as fast as possible before it starts raining. We escalated the pace of our journey but we know no one can go against the nature, it started drizzling and now we were in the middle of nowhere. By God’s grace, we found a shop and we asked them whether we could stay at their shop. But they said they have very little space, so they advised us that instead of going straight, we should take a right and then travel around 500 metres where we can find some huts. We never knew that guy, nor did he, we followed his instructions and finally reached the huts (THANKS TO HIM). The moment we stepped inside after collecting some wood, it started raining heavily along with thunderstorm. I was damn scared because thunders were very loud. I started praying, telling god that I will do whatever u say, just get me out of here. After around 20–30 minutes, intensity of rain reduced so we lit fire and started making food for the night.

He was the head chef of our tour. He is an extremely talented guy who will not let you sleep without food.

We had some rice that night, we never cared for how it was cooked as we all were tired and hungry. We 6 people somehow managed to sleep in that small hut, while it was raining outside. The next morning was a bright day, the rain stopped but still there were chances of it coming again. I had maggi that morning which I ate with the help of a stick, till now I remember the taste of that maggi (AMAZING).

I, along with my brother, suggested that it is not safe to continue our journey and we should head back while others suggested that we should go ahead. The shopkeeper after knowing our place, NAGRI, which is quite respectable, suggested that we should keep our luggage in his shop and then continue our journey. By this we can reach the temple within 1–2 hours. So it was 5:30 in the morning, we trusted that guy and continued our journey. Around 7:30, we reached the temple, but now we could easily see that our problems have just started. It was again cloudy and now we never even had our luggage.

The pic still gives me goosebumps!!!!!

We knew what it took for us to reach there, so we clicked some pics and enjoyed the weather. The scenery from the top is amazing, we forgot everything and enjoyed the nature. Soon our enjoyment was over as it started raining again, actually on the top whenever it rains, temperature drops down abruptly. So now it was very cold and we had nothing to cover ourselves, we sat inside the temple and asked the people for some blankets.

We knew that we can’t stay longer as we were freezing, so we returned the blankets and then started our journey back without anything over our head in heavy rain. Even the surface was slippery so we had to now take extra care. We covered our head with whatever we had, I used a polythene, some used their handkerchief etc. One beautiful thing happened in between all this, we had to cross a cloud and it was just amazing .

It is not fog, but cloud!!!!

Somehow we reached the shop, my brother slipped several times as his slippers were damaged. We took our luggage and continued in the rain, now with our blankets. After such a long, tiring journey we reached our destination drenched in rain. My Chachu came and finally our adventurous trip came to end.

Collage of some of the photos of this trip.

So thanks to everyone who read such a big story as today we all are busy in our lives. If you read it and enjoyed it, you can recommend this story (thanks to Swetha for the grammar check, as it was a very long story), I will continue with turtle (ya, not python but turtle) as I told you in my previous blog. Till then enjoy your life and keep coding…

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