Part I – Base Camp

Part II – The Ascent

Part III – The Descent

The Descent to Biskeri Thatch, the next lower camp at 11000 ft., is by far the most arduous but again most exciting too. Over half of the journey is through very slippery snow hardened at places into ice. Two Sherpas accompanied us during this part, one carving out a path in the front and one watching out for stones from the rear. Since the ice is constantly melting the danger of large rocks sliding down is very real – We could see paths gouged out by many rocks which had slid down.

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Part I – Base Camp

Part III – The Descent

Part II – The Ascent

On the 20th (3rd day) we woke up bright and early with expectation heavy in the air. After double checking our backpacks and packing our lunch we got a pep talk from the director of the camp. YHAI gave us some packed sweets and chikki as complements and finally we were off to the claps of the remaining participants in the camp (which is as per YHAI tradition). After a short bus ride to a place called Unchdahar (Imagine 50 trekkers in a bus – there was literally no space for the locals) we were off on the trek.

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Part II – The Ascent

Part III – The Descent

Part I – Base Camp

This Summer I decided to do something different. I decided to climb. When I was in college we used to go on these one day trekking expeditions to nearby Ooty and Kodaikanal. Now I was older and significantly heavier but still wanted to find out if I had it in me. I had heard about the Youth Hostel Association of India (YHAI) from some friends at work and talked to some of them who had participated in their numerous trekking expeditions and zeroed in on the trek to Sar Pass at 13800 ft. The programme was for all of 11 days starting from Kasol which was the base camp.

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