19th July 2024, 01:28
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| BHPian  Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: bangalore
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| Pin Bhaba Trek, Himachal Pradesh Last week I completed the Pin Bhaba Trek in Himachal Pradesh.This 8 day trek covers 51 Kms and reaches a height of 16100 feet on the day of summit. The trekkers all meet at Shimla on day 1 and drive down to Kafnu in Bhaba valley. Next morning, the trek starts from Kafnu village in bhaba valley and ends at Mudd village in Spiti which is part of Pin valley. I did this with Trek the Himalayas (TTH) (https://trekthehimalayas.com/pin-bhaba-pass-trek). This was my 3rd trek with them and my experience with them was good. At 45, I was the oldest in a group of 25 which consisted of teenagers, youngsters in their early/mid 20's and few in the early 40's. Some of them were first timers for a Himalayan trek. All 25 completed the trek successfully without anyone incident but at their own pace. While the trek was challengenging at places due to steep inclines or slippery slopes, it was an amazing experience overall. This trek offered a variety of terrain for one to experience: Alpine forests, walking on the mountain ridge, Snow bridges, Sliding down on snow layer to walk kilomters on the boulders of Spiti Valley and escaping the falling rocks, it was an exhilarating experience. Here is the Itinerary we followed: Day 1: Shimla to Kafnu by road. Nothing much happens this day except for we travel via winding roads surrounded by Apple orchids, forests etc. Distance covered was approximately 200 km  Cloud cover in Shimla. This was taken near the old ISBT Day 2: Kafnu to Mulling. Total distance 11 Km. This path takes us via Alpine forests with mountains engulfed by clouds. There were couple of places were the incline was very steep. We were treated to amazing views of the mountains throughout the day.   Rains accompanied us all through this trek and when we reached Mulling, it was raining cat's and dogs and the tent's were setup as one of the mule carrying the equipment managed to run away. We had to wait for over an hour in a Shepard's home (a concrete structure in the middle of now where) till the TTH team got the equipment and setup the tents in the rain. Once the rain let off, we too tried our hand at pitching tents and making ourself comfortable. The day ended with some hearty roti/sabji along with rice and daal for dinner along with a dessert of some kheer. In the morning the day break happened around 4.30 AM. Due to enough day light and I couldn't sleep any more and when I opened the tent the views were stunning befrore the clouds covered the camp site.   Day-3: Mulling to Kara After a quick breakfast of Poha, bread jam and tea, we started our day 3 trek towards Kara camp site which was 6 KM away. We covered a distance of around 6 KM today, the terrain had few inclines and we gained an altitude of around 1000 ft with one particular spot being the steepest on the side of the mountain. Once you across this spot its almost flat path to Kara Camp site which is nestled beside a small lake.  Saw this Carrom pointing the route towards the Kara camp site As our's was the first batch of the season, there were no established camp sites and at every camp site the tents were to be pitches and dismantled as per our itenerary. As we reached Kara with lot of time to spare, we helped the team to pitch the tents, played some cards and took a small hike to a near by boulder and enjoyed watching the mules running around and grazing. Today was the day where there was a small health scare with me. During the hike from Mulling to Kara, I had protein bars on the way at different rest stops. One of the packets was puffed which I thought was due to the atmospheric pressure. But this wasn't sitting well and I started getting lot of Burps. at the camp site they had organised rice and kadi for lunch. I was able to have my lunch but somehow kept getting a lot of burps. tried taking a Eno and the very next moment I therw up all the lunch and my head started to spin lightly. Our trek leader had advised not to sleep in the day time to avoid AMS, but I was feeling so weak I had to lie down in the tent and fight hard not to sleep. While I was resting various thought kept creeping in my mind about why did I get myself in to this. May be I should have been more fitter, may be I should let Trek leader know that am done etc etc. Somehow managed not to sleep and other asked me to join on their small hike to the near by boulder. Though I couldn't climb all the way up to where they were, I sat on another small boulder midway and enjoyed the mountain breeze. When we got down we were served some Soup. I was barely able to have the soup too. we tried playing some card games till dinner and at dinner I forced my self to have just 1 roti and went to sleep. Kept telling myself that I will be fine in the morning and will complete this trek. Day-4: Kara to Phutsirang I woke up feeling perfectly fine and had a good breakfast of Upma and pasta. Today was going to be the shortest day of the trek covering some 5.5KMs and we gain some 2000 ft of altitude. The path now has boulders, streams and few inclines and easily done in around 4 - 5 hours. This was the only day when we had to take our shoes off and cross couple of streams. Everyone was in good spirits and we had to cross small stream before we reach a flat grass plain to rest and click a lot of photos. While crossing the stream we had a boulder fall from the top at rapid speed. We quickly ran to saftey and reach the other side. when we looked up to see what caused the boulder to fall and it took a little efforts to squint our eyes and see it.  Here they are:  The grass plain and the view reminded of the old Windows XP wall paper with Blue sky.    We had hot lunch at the camp site and spent rest of the day chatting, walking around and playing cards. Few people did nap as there was nothing else to do. for evening snacks we were served pain puri which tasted amazing.  The view from Phutsiran camp site Day-5: Phutsirang To Baldhar via Bhaba Pass Today was the longest day of the entire trek and we would cover a distance of 17 KM from Phutsirang to Balder. As per the original plan we were to cover only a distance of 12 KM and reach Mangrungse, but as that camp site was no longer usable due to fallen boulders we pushed to Baldhar which was further 5 kilometres. The trek starts at 3 AM in the morning and the trek leaders had the slow walkers of the group in the front and we all started climbing up 1st summit in a single file. Due to single file and the darkness we didn't realize the altitude we were gaining which was a good thing.  As we reached the first summit we have to cross from one mountain to another by crossing a snow bridge. Here the path was wet with loose mud and stones and a slight slip would take us directly to the bottom of the mountain from where we started. There was no grass or plants to bind the mud and the path was kinda slippery. Day break was happening and we could see distance we have covered so far. Our tents at the Phutsirang camp site appearing as tiny dots. It was a challenging crossing and almost everyone had their heart in their mouth till they got safely to the other side. The trek leaders did a commendable job of getting us across without any incidents. You can spot the camp tents at the bottom  We then kept climbing towards the 2nd summit and this path was not as difficult as the 1st summit, but the path was filled with loose rocks and boulders. As the sun light was coming up we could see the near by peaks and were amazed at the beauty of the Himalayas.  We rested for some 20 mins before we started to push towards the 3rd summit which is the Pin Bhaba pass. We had 2 approaches: one over boulders which was long and another via the snow. We got our spikes out and started to walk on the snow. Good progress was made and the brilliance of the entire trek left all of us mesmerised.    Slowly one by one we made it to summit. The joy of achieving this feet can't be explained in words. From the summit the view of both Bhaba and Pin valley were simply out standing. We spent a good amount of time on the summit and clicked a lot of photos individually and as group.   It was time to start down in to the Pin valley and the initial stretch was filled with ice. As the sun was beating down, the spikes would not be required any more. We decided to take the fastest route to go down by Sliding. There were already tracks for sliding and for the first slide we did it individually. For the 2nd we kinda did a train of 3 - 6 people and for the third slide we repeated the same. It was so much fun to slide down and we probably easily covered some 200 m distance. While our bottoms were sore and numb with cold none of us had an untowed incident during this activity.  Starting down the Pin Valley in to Spiti Once the snow cover ends we have the path through boulders and stream. We had to walk carefully as the rocks were not stable and while cross a stream a big boulder started rolling down at a great speed. We all ran helter skelter to safety but thankfully the boulders fall was arrested much above us by other boulders and we quickly moved down. Once we reached the bottom, we took our lunch break beside a small stream which provided some clean water.  Here is a look at the pass from our lunch spot The Pin valley is part of Spiti and while there are streams the water is full of mud and not fit for drinking. We filled out water bottles after the lunch and started our march towards Baldhar camp. The next 12 kms were just walking on the boulders. Carroms setup at different places guided us on the right way but this part of the trek was tiring with uneven footing on the boulders of one hill after another. With no fresh water source we had to conserve our water and only take a sip or 2 at a time. Sun was beating down on us but the air was cold and we walked with our jackets on. As we get closer to the Baldhar camp the path goes via edge of some of the hills and here the soil was very loose and unstable. we had to walk carefully to ensure there are no accidents. The mules carrying our camp materials started only after day break and we had to take a break and wait for them to pass us before we could continue. Finally around 4 PM in the evening we made it to Baldhar camp one by one all exhausted and dehydrated. The Baldhar camp site appears to be a permanent fixture and had a tap connect to a stream near by, so there was uninterrupted water supply. But there are no big tree our boulders near by so there was no shade what's so ever.  After resting for sometime, we setup our tents and were served with some hot pakoda and tea which we all relished with Joy. We spent the rest of the day chit chatting, playing cards. Dinner was hearty Roti, sabji, Daal and Chawal. For dessert we were served Jalebi with rabdi which vanished within no time.  Stepped out in the night to catch a glimpse of the Milky way Day-6: Bardhal To Mudh/Kaza Today was supposed to be a rest day for us but none of us wanted to rest and instead we decided to walk to Mudh covering a distance of 12 km. This was relatively easy as we were losing altitude but we did encounter some 3 - 4 places which required us to climb up a hill. I would get tired pretty easy today after the long walk the previous day, so I took ample rest and hydrated myself. We cross hills filled with boulders, grass plains, cross streams over all today was a lot of fun.  As we approach Mudh village we could see his huge mountains all around with different colours. The mudh village which is the last village in Spiti valley is nestled in a mountain which had these amazing layers.  Closer to the village we could see the fields which had pea crop and each field had a delicate compound made of single or double later of rocks. finally we made it to Mudh village around 3 PM and were asked to wait at Tara restaurant, while the trek leaders tried to get communication going for vehicles which would take us to Kaza. As there is no mobile network at Mudh, some had to travel some 5 - 6 Kms to catch BSNL network to make a call and ones staying back will have to try and communicate with them via walkie talkie. The wait was long as the communication wasn't going thru and finally around 7 PM the vehicles arrived and we quickly loaded up our bags and started to Kaza. We reached Kaza around 9 and we were allocated rooms in 2 different hotels. After freshening up, we decided to skip the dinner arrange by TTH and instead explore some cafe's in Kaza. After spending couple of hours enjoying some nice good and lot of chat and leg pulling we finally retired for the day on a comfortable and warm bed. Day-7: Kaza To Manali Today we would traverse the Spiti valley and cover a distance of around 200 km. We started at 6 AM and enjoyed the mesmarizing landscape Spiti valley offers.     Last year I had travelled up to Chandratal lake but the landscape from Kaza to Chacha Chachi Dhaba was simple breath taking. We reached Cacha-Chachi Dhaba at around 9.45 and gorged on the yummy Aloo parathas. Dal chawal, Rajma Chawal along with that spicy chutney. We were warned to eat only a small amount of chutney but we ended up finish half of the bowl. finished our brunch with the amazing tea and shopped for the Himalayan Chocolates and started our Journey to Manali. The route after the Dhaba gets really bad and at lot of places we could see slew of earth movers trying to get a decent enough surface for vehicles to move. The clouds gathered around the horizon and it started to drizzle giving the entire atmosphere a surreal look. We finally reach Manali-Leh highway and stopped for some tea before the Atal tunnel before reaching to a rainy Manali. We all said good byes to each other and went our way to the plans we had made. Thus comes to end our amazing Pin Bhaba pass trek. Hope you enjoyed reading through this travelogue. Last edited by ant_vas : 24th July 2024 at 00:24. |
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24th July 2024, 05:47
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25th July 2024, 14:25
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