My First Himalaya Trek to Har ki dun : By Barkha Bhagia

When I was in school, during my geography classes I used to fantasize about the Himalayas. It was always appreciated for being huge and wide and also for saving India from harsh cold winds. It was my dream to go to Himalayas. Somewhere down the line I lost the track of my dream. About 2 years back, Reetu (my best friend who has stood the test of time and also one of the founders of The Great Escape) spinned the idea of doing Har-ki-dun a moderate easy Himalaya trek and I said yes without any second thoughts. Prior to that I had done very basic treks in and around Bangalore, so the idea of trekking in Himalayas was romantic to me. I googled blogs about Har ki dun and fell in love with the pictures of this scenic place in no time. Although, they said that the trek is moderate easy, I knew I had to build up strength and stamina to finish it strong.

I started preparing by going for runs, hitting office gym and focusing on my core strength. All the preparation, right from building more physical strength and investing in proper gears for the trek paid off eventually.  There was only excitement and not even a pinch of fear when I started my trek as I had followed whatever Reetu had asked to while preparing for it. Our team size was 15, out of which me and Reetu were the only girls. It hardly mattered because throughout the trek we had matched and at times out-paced the guys 😛

On the first day, the terrain had a mixture of uphill and downhill and we covered around 14 kilometers on foot. There was no time to think how tired I was because the group, trek lead, guides were all fun. Towards the end of first day, it started raining which made the last 2 kilometers quite challenging. On himalayas, there is nothing worse than rains. It takes forever for the clothes to dry and it is freaking cold. Our second day was the toughest of all 5 days. The terrain was majorly uphill and total distance was around 12 km. There were times when I was just panting and trying to walk. During these times, I would look around and realize there is nothing more beautiful I have seen in my entire life. The views kept me going with the hope that it’s only going to get better as I climb further. To my surprise, it was beautiful beyond my imagination. Our third day was relatively easy as distance was only 4-5 kms and we reached the valley of Har ki dun and trekked a bit further to play in snow. Fourth and fifth day involved descend which was a bit hard on knees and toes. We covered close to 55 kms in the span of 5 days.

Those five days have changed my perspective towards life. When I was living those days, I had never thought that the impact would be so huge. There were times where I ran, I walked, I crawled but I never quit. This attitude has stayed with me ever since. I have been taught since very beginning that you should only compete and compare with yourself and if you ever look at your neighbour’s plate, it should be to ensure that they have enough to eat. I literally lived these words during my trek. I was competing with just myself to get better. I tried helping and lifting others during the trek so that they won’t give up. I had no clue what I would gain by climbing all those rocks and realized after hitting my destination that it was all worth the effort and probably the results I gained were worth many folds the effort applied. I have been trying to live my life the same way, where I just put in my efforts and give it my best shot without having to worry about the results. They will be much bigger than I can ever imagine.

It is hard to tell if I conquered the Himalayas or the Himalayas conquered me! I think it’s the Himalayas that have conquered me. I keep going back to it and sink in its magical mystery. I have done 2 more treks in Himalayas — Kedarkantha and Rupin pass, both were organized by The Great Escape. I was in such awe with Himalayas that I floated an idea to my mother to do a trek with me and she happily agreed to do Kedarkantha. She was 61 when we did Kedarkantha 🙂