17th April:
Great Himalayan National Park
We had booked our trek in GHNP via Sunshine Himalayan Adventures that is run by Ankit Sood & his brother Panki Sood. Ankit is from Kullu itself & is an Eco-Tourism expert & holds camping & treks to Great Himalayan National Park.
The GHNP is another great wonder to discuss. It is possibly the newest wildlife park in India, and was built in 1984. The very expanse of the park is mind numbing at 1171 km square!!! The altitude of the park varies from 1500m to 6000m, which is saying something!! It is possibly one of the most unexplored national park of India, and is HUGE beyond any comparison!! You can read more details on the park here… GHNP Wiki
The Park, that is nominated to be a World Heritage Site (a huge honour), connects to 3 distinct valleys in Kullu…Gushaini, Parvati & Sainj!! Such is the large expanse of GHNP.
GHNP is widely known to spot the very rare Himalayan Snow Leopard – a snow white colour leopard that is a rarity & only found in upper Himalayas. You can also spot black bear & brown bear here. While black bear might be a common sight for national parks, a brown bear is still a rarity in the country. Photography enthusiasts come from far & wide & spend days on end in GHNP to spot these animals. In fact Ankit Sood’s team of porters regaled us with many stories of such photography pursuits to which they were personally a party. Like they told us the story of this one photographer from Delhi who spent 15 days in just one area in GHNP to spot the black bear & the brown bear. He spent days on end & was frustrated many times (as the jungle can get very unnerving & lonely after 1 or 2 days) trying to spot the duo. He would still spot the black bear, but missed out on the brown one!! One day, he spotted what he was looking for…and it was the most spectacular sight!! It was a black bear & a brown bear caught in a combat with each other!!! WHOAAAAAA!! How we would kill to click such a moment. But such moments are clicked with hell lot of patience & perseverance, and are rarely a stroke of sheer luck.
Moving on with our own adventure, we met Ankit as soon as we checked out of Raju’s & he came across as a very sweet & fun loving person. He introduced us to his family and took the responsibility to get our permits made for GHNP entrance. He introduced us to his team of porters cum guides cum chefs…in short his team of one man army, Dileep Ji. We will take a moment here and tell you something about Dileep Ji & his team of porters. Dileep Ji is one of the oldest guides at GHNP & has been working there for good 20 years!! He is a local, obviously, and is an indescribable wonder of a man!!
The porters here carry at least 15-20 kgs of your comfort on their back & trek with you to stretches in this forest, where it is difficult for you to even walk. Agreed they are locals, but seeing their agility despite so much of load on their back & their attention to each detail for your comfort, is a truly humbling experience. For this they earn nothing compared to us city breds, who probably cannot put even 1/10th of their effort in our work & still earn miles better & still crib about our lives in big cities. When we see the satisfaction and effort with which these people do their work and not expect anything, it makes us feel really small.
Dileep Ji & a young co-guide with him carried 15 kgs each of our comfort with them, & off we started!!
Before we started, although, Ankit took us to the temple right at the entrance of GHNP trek point, where we clicked some pictures of the gorgeous & intricate wood carvings in the small temple!!
We started our trek to the Great Himalayan National Park!!
This time we also opted for a trekking stick, and discovered its true wonder. Truly, if you have a trekking stick in hand (Dileep ji gave both Hasina & Musafir a sturdy staff which was a rather long bark of a tree in the forest). It was amazing how much force you can put on these natural staffs, while walking & they would not break at all!!! God knows, which tree gave such springy, soft, easy to use & sturdy wood!!
Hasina felt like Gandalf, the wizard, and would tap her staff on ground many times, expecting magic (hehehee!!)…also the surrounding was so decadently Lord of The Rings, that it was hard not imagining yourself as one of the characters in a mega epic fantasy series!! J
The trek to GHNP is actually easy; easy compared to the snow trek we faced in Jalori Pass. It is a much longer trek (11 kms one way; 8 kms to entrance gate & 3 kms ahead of that in Rolla), but since we were not that worried of where to put our feet, we found it easier. Not to forget, the trekking stick helped a lot too.
One thing that we would like to mention here is that our campsite this night was in Rolla, that is level 1 in GHNP and is just 3 kms from GHNP entrance gate. This is considered the easiest trek in GHNP. People who stay here further, hike next day to level 2, that is Shilt; another 11 odd kms from Rolla. This trek is fairly challenging as the jungle gets denser & denser & chances of encountering wild animals is much more. In fact the porters told us that jungle here gets so dense that many times you have to pass from under boughs & barks of trees!!
Level 3 after this, and the toughest trek here, is Tirth. Tirth is the source of the majestic River Tirthan, that flourishes in the whole Kullu valley, and the most spectacular place!! A total of 5-6 days are required to do this trek from Gushaini side only. You can always choose to trek back via Parvati Valley or Sainj.
A little talk with Ankit clarified that the whole GHNP can be done, but is quite challenging & requires 15 days!! He also mentioned that he hardly knows anyone who has done the complete GHNP stretch!!!
Anyways, we were just at level 1, as GHNP was part of our itinerary & we will take you till Rolla with us!!
We will take you through this route via more pictures & less words J J…because sometime pictures just say so much more!!
As we trekked deeper & deeper on our route & into the forest...
we could not help marvel on how we were leaving civilisation behind and getting deep in the throes of the wilderness of GHNP.
…waylaid by gorgeous views
…by little streams gushing in the most picturesque locales.
…by blood red rhododendrons carpeting our walk!!
And Coldplay’s “Paradise” was on our playlist the whole way!!
Around 4.30pm we reached at this beautiful scene that made our jaw drop!!
This is the legendary Hippo Falls…it is called so, because of how the rock in front of the fall is shaped like a Hippo!!
We sat on the huge rock right opposite the falls (with the help of Dileep Ji), the rock was super slippery as it had been drizzling all along!! Dileep ji, the one man army, handed us our packed lunch right there!! Oh what joy it was to sit right opposite a cascading fall, the type we had only seen in movies, in middle of a jungle and munch on sandwiches. Post eating a quiet lunch, we posed for a selfie or two J J J
After all, it was a big moment.
It was time to resume our trek, and we entered inside the GHNP entrance gate finally!!
From here, we were joined by a guy named Aakash Mohindra, an ex XLRI student. He also became part of the group now!! We resumed our trek to 3 kms ahead of the gate, where the route got even denser & with roads completely washed off at places, it had just a rickety wooden bridge for support!!!
Whoa…well you asked for it!! That’s the look Musafir gave to Hasina J
The 3 kms trek however, did not take much time, and we reached our first campsite just before dark.
Within half an hour, we were given hot Maggi to eat!!! While we sat there wondering where that came from & munched it hungrily & happily, we were serenaded again with hot soup half an hour later!! Aakash, who had been there a day or two earlier, laughed seeing our awed looks!! He had experienced this hospitality & told us tales of his stay there, and how he had never been so comfortable in his life!!
We all huddled by the fire, which was so so comforting…and the rest of the porters told us many stories & anecdotes of GHNP. One of them being, how a woman in one of their treks fell down & broke a bone in her leg. The team was then in Shilt, which is again 11kms odd trek from Rolla, where we were currently, and way denser jungle. Obviously a panic ran amongst all people in the group, as the jungle was too dense, it was raining, and the woman could not walk or do anything at all….and the way back to the base was again through 23 kms of dense jungle. But these talented porters left no time in immediately fashioning a stretcher out of whatever was available in the jungle…wood, twine, etc etc & made a stretcher where they tied the lady. Then she was mounted on the back of one of the porters, who trekked her back in no time!!!
This should sure go in Ripley’s Believe it or Not!! That’s the sheer capability & capacity of mountain folks!!
After an hour & so of chatting around the fire, with the fire being the one & only source of light (the moon was not visible due to dense cloud cover), we were astonished to see Dileep Ji & his team preparing a candle light dinner for us!! Candle light dinner in this wilderness!!! We had frankly expected nothing at all!!
Dazed & very awed, we moved to the dining space & saw Dileep Ji had prepared Rajma, Rice, mix vegetable, warm chapatis, salad…all under 1 hour…and and that too after supplying us with Maggi & Soup!!! And that after trekking with almost 15 kgs of weight over 6 hours!!! Needless to say, the food was so delicious, so sinfully good to taste that we ate thrice of our apetite.
The candlelight dinner was rounded off with sinfully delicious bread pudding as dessert, prepared by Dileep Ji too. Trust us on this, we have never had such delicious dessert & food in the best of 5 stars!! And those guys have fancy kitchens & equipment to cook!!
Post polishing off each & every morsel, we sat again by the fire…happily drowsy after a long day; a long but beautiful day!! We chatted for a while, until one of the porters asked us if we wanted Hot Chocolate or Coffee to round off the day!! We were aghast & awed by their relentless attention to our comfort!!
The jungle around us looked dark, deep, quiet…and so so mystical!! We were parked next to a grove with river cascading away & the sheer magic of this setting was maddeningly unnerving & yet so calming!!
It was time to sleep…and we must confess it was our first time sleeping in a tent & in a sleeping bag!!
CATERPILLAR!!!
That’s what we felt like in our zipped up sleeping bags…like two caterpillars, trying to find our mamma…the butterfly!! Hehehehee….
Well the “caterpillars” slept off soon!! It wasn’t the most comfortable sleep, but seriously, in a jungle, this is as good as it can get…well unless you wish to sleep in those pseudo so called “jungles”, that have 5 star resorts!! Too pseudo for our taste!!
Hasina (aka The Drama Queen), woke up at night to drizzling & pitter patter of rain drops…saw an oddly shaped something on our tent and woke up Musafir “S..s..s..snake”….Musafir woke up with a start, saw the shape, & was exasperated. “It is letter W written on our tent, in a zigzag manner, just sleep…will you”!!
After 2 hours, Hasina woke up again, and prodded Musafir awake…
Musafir (clearly irritated): What??!! What now..what??!!
Hasina: Shhh…can you hear that??
Musafir: What??!!
Hasina: Someone is saying “My Precious!!” (told you…Drama Queen!! Could hear Gollum here)
Musafir: Sleep!! Just sleep!! S.L.E.E.P!!
Finally it was morning!!
We came out of our tents to rain washed valley and lots of fresh energy!! J
Our porters were already up & served us morning tea right away!! Best tea we have ever had!!
After tea, we were served breakfast like royals.
We were truly FLOORED!!
After breakfast it was for selfies & group pics & time to trek back.
The trek down was just completing the way in rainfall.
We met Ankit downstairs & recounted how we loved the trek!! Post this trek Ankit was supposed to take us to Lake Prashar, another beautiful wonder!! But alas, we could not go, as it was raining there & due to bad weather, Ankit advised us not to go there.
