Nag Tibba in Winters – The Ultimate Adventure!

Finally the rain stopped and the sky cleared. We could see stars staring at us from light years away. I stared back at them, secretly hoping to see a shooting star. But that didn’t happen, and instead I let out a wish for the universe to work on. It was cold and my shoes still wet because of continuous rain the whole day. Even though we tried to get them dry with the help of a fire, they were not entirely dry. Hoping that the sun comes up the next day, I zipped myself  in that sleeping bag. I was tired and it was warm and cozy inside. Just when I was about to drift off to sleep, the silence of the night changed into a melody of raindrops falling on the tent. But that sound was a melody only until I realized that my shoes were still not dry and we had another few kilo meters to reach the summit. Nag Tibba

I could not sleep that night. Partly because of fatigue, partly because I was worried, partly because I kept slipping down from the mattress. Every few minutes I would start feeling cold and realize that I am sleeping on the ground. I have no idea why that happened and felt like it was some kind of rocket-science to not fall off from that mattress. The night slipped by slowly, and I remember drifting into sleep only in the wee hours of the morning. At one point, I had even started imagining a sunrise. Maybe that’s when I finally fell asleep, dreaming of a pretty sunrise.

We had to get up early and start moving by 7:30am. Like my usual self, I didn’t come to know when all the others got up. I was still in dream-land when I heard someone calling my name and trying to wake me up. Opening my eyes, unzipping the sleeping bag, I was already wishing it to be a sunny day. Thankfully, I wasn’t disappointed. But my happiness was short-lived. The shoes were wet again, soaked in dew. What a bummer!

Morning chores were performed in a small tent with a make-shift bio toilet which GIO Staff had set up. Taking a bath wasn’t an option, neither did I fancy taking one in such cold. A fire was lit up once again to dry up the shoes but we didn’t have much time. While we feasted on a simple breakfast of bread-butter and poha, my shoes feasted on fire. But they didn’t really dry up so I had to wear a layer of polythene each to keep my socks from getting wet. It had already started drizzling before we started today’s journey, so I left the camera behind. First time ever, I was on an adventure without my better half, and I kept on missing it the entire time. But, GIO staff member and photographer, Sandeep Juyal kind of made up for it. 🙂

The trail was laden with rhododendron trees, wet and dripping. But,polythene inside my shoes made sure that my feet were happy. We had our raincoats on and for the first time since the day before, I was not afraid of rain but started enjoying it. We continued moving upwards, and the rain-drops converted into hail. This time, I was prepared for it all and I had no camera to worry about. We made it to the first pit-stop in around an hour and a half. It was a meadow and there were layers of ice scattered lavishly. Now, the effort of the previous days  felt worth it and we took a little break.

Suddenly, my wish came true; the one which I had let out for the universe to conspire and turn to reality. A snowflake landed on me, reinforcing my belief that the universe does make it happen, you only have to wish with all your heart. Snowflake by snowflake, it all started making sense. It felt so surreal and I just didn’t want to even blink my eyes to let it vanish even for a second. We started moving forward, bend by bend and soon we were surrounded by whites all around. At yet another bend, we spotted a huge tree with a burrow and we didn’t miss a photo opportunity!

It had stopped snowing for a while now, but only after turning the entire landscape white. The only sounds we could hear were those of our own footsteps. It was as serene as it could ever get. For a moment, I was happy to have left the camera behind. But then clicking pictures with my phone, I started missing it again. It was too beautiful to be described in words. No pictures can do justice to what we saw, no words can be as beautiful as the snow-clad pathways that lay in front of us. Here is a snippet of how utterly pretty it all was.

Though it was getting difficult to walk on snow now, but none of us seemed to mind that. We were all super happy that we got to see what snow-white feels like. We kept moving ahead, negotiating strong winds, taking breaks to stare at the most beautiful things we had ever seen.

And now on, words won’t suffice, so I will not even try. That’s almost the summit of Nag Tibba.

And then I finally made it to the summit. Though Nag Tibba isn’t really a difficult trek, the weather made sure that it was kind of challenging in bits and pieces, for each one of us.

 

And then we started moving back to our camp. It took us a good three hours to reach, since we took multiple breaks, had a picnic lunch, visited a temple that we found at a lower meadow. I am suddenly at a loss of words again. I’ll let these videos do the talking for me today.

P.S. I can’t make a decent video to save my life. These masterpieces have been shot with a phone camera by Sandeep Juyal from GIO and all the credits go to him for making my memories digitally permanent.