Day 4: Bus to Ghatigadh & trek to Jalgithatch

Day 4: By bus to Ghatigadh (7400ft)- 13km, 1hr & trek to Youth Hostel Galgithatch (actually its Jalgi Thatch) (8500ft)- 5km, 4hr

On day 4, you are asked to be ready for departure by 8 AM. After taking packed lunch, you are led to the road above the camp where you wait for a local bus. Here things get interesting as the morning bus driver knows that he is getting 50 odd passengers. However, there is not enough space inside as other regular passengers are already inside. 5-6 of the trekkers load the rucksacks on the rooftop, along with the walking sticks people have bought/ brought with them. As everyone boards the bus, it is a dense crush load (pardon the Railway lingo) and it is not possible for anyone to board the bus en-route unless some of the passengers get off. The group leader buys the tickets for which he will get a refund on coming back to Kasol camp. The crush soon eases off as we cross Manikaran and after a 45 minute to 1 hour ride, we reach our drop off point near village Ghatigarh. 

Here we meet our first guide. Guides are local villagers who escort the batches between camps. Same guide works the same stretch each day, with different batches. There are some more sticks available for sale, at the roadside. The trek starts with a steep sloping trail towards the river, where a pedestrian bridge is used to cross over to the other side. The trail now has a steep slope upwards towards the village. The trekkers quickly feel the stress of climbing up and the batch stretches out, with the slow walkers trailing the fast walkers. A few girls offer help as porters. No one in our batch took up the offer. There are clumps of iris along the way, looking beautiful in the green background. 

Iris flower

Can you find the face on this tree?

Traditional Himachali house

With a few intermediate stops, the batch reached the village where there is a tea point within 45 minutes of the walk starting. The kitchen is in a room inside a double storey house while a tarpaulin is stretched across over a patch of ground nearby, for resting in shade. Maggi, omelette, tea, biscuits and soft drinks are on offer at a premium. This premium goes on increasing with altitude, over next few days.

After some rest, an almost level path takes us to a lunch spot which is just a km away from the tea point, along a stream. Here we rest for almost two hours as entry into the camps is planned for 3 pm at Jalgi Thatch.

Utkarsh, a tent-mate, crossing a stream

Tea being brewed at lunch point

There are two tea shops here as well. After a long wait, we finally start moving again and after another 3 km of level track, we stop for some more rest, killing time with antakshiri. The path passes through some dense forest which is a balm to eyes accustomed to concrete jungles.

We start again at 230 pm and almost immediately reach Jalgi Thatch. The trek was marked with more rest than walking. The camp is on a sloping ground in a small clearing in the forest. 4 tents for male participants and one for the female trekkers is the norm at all camps. One kitchen and two tents for storage, the camp in-charge and the workers make up the rest. There is a water point, with the water being brought by a plastic pipe from a stream nearby. A dust bin area is identified where waste is burned periodically. Toilet areas are identified for ladies and gents separately. The camps have a few toilet tents but the stench makes you go out in the open.

The camps give out welcome drinks consisting of diluted fruit squashes (normally 4 pm), tea (5 pm), distribution of sleeping bags and blankets (6 pm), dinner (0630 pm) and bournvita (8 pm). Mornings have bed tea (6 am), breakfast (7 am), packed lunch (0730 am), deposition of sleeping bags and blankets and cleaning of tents before departure around 8 am. These timings vary slightly from camp to camp. At Tila Lotni, for the trek over Sar Pass, departure is at 0445 am. The welcome drink is hot soup in place of diluted squash at few camps including at Tila Lotni.

The evenings are spent knowing each other better and I am introduced to a new game called Mafia. This game became a rage during the trek and we spent hours playing out in open, sitting on rain sheets or inside tents.

The night was uneventful, with some minor irritants like snoring tent mates, inadequate length of sleeping bags, sloping ground, some stones causing discomfort and inadequate space in tents for two rows of people to sleep, resulting in overlapping of feet. However, everyone soon adjusted.