From the steep slopes of Gulabo

16/6/2014

Kick starting our day with a breakfast meeting at 9:00, we split the batch of nineteen students into two groups, one of which was to go downhill to the Kothi village while the other group was to go upto Gulabo, one of the smaller trek routes to Rohtang.

We started off to Gulabo on an enthusiastic note, but little did we know that we had to endure the most difficult part of the trek - to climb the steep slope from our cottage at an angle of around 75-80 degree slope line- right during the first 15 minutes of the two and a half hours of trekking.

By and by, we proceeded on our journey, gathering interesting information. We got to know during our trek that a landslide had occurred sometime back which led to the felling of trees and could actually see the track of the landslide. We got to know of the seven sisters, of the ice shiv ling that was two stories high, and not to forget, the brown bears.

But disappointingly, we didn't have any sightings of bears. And as we climbed higher, we had reached a point at which the climb had become steeper than before and everyone was sweating gallons. Other than me and Gaurav, my companion, everyone decided to rest at that point, not to move an inch. But Gaurav and I were more interested in seeing the top of Gulabo. I was climbing a little slow,so when I reached at the top, I saw Gaurav interacting with a local shepherd, who hailed from Mandi, and had come here to Kothi for 2 months, until they moved to Lahaul. They were nomadic herders and they sometime sell their cattle when they would get a good price, they informed us. It was a nice chat interacting with the shepherd and his three companions.

After that we decided to follow the route to the top but our guide summoned us down as we were getting late. So before going down I took some photographs of the mountain, the cattle, trees, shrubs, and whatever I could get hold of and took a short video to prove to my skeptic friends back home that I was capable of some action as well. Walking back to the cottage, I told myself "It was a good experience for all of us."