Fascinating Journey of Exploration Part 1

An expedition to  Dodi Tal & Darwa Top, Western Garhwal.

3rd -12th December, 2012

 The Serene surroundings, mighty snow covered mountains, undisturbed dense forests,chirruping birds, gurgling water streams, blissful air and all this away from the worldly presence of humans & their creations; this is how I can possibly describe what I saw during the course of my 10 days out bound leadership training under TSAF (TATA Steel Adventure Foundation) in Uttarkashi, Uttarakhand. 

This training or rather more of exploring expedition that it was, a wonderful experience of living amidst fascinating creation of God in its original form, the virgin beauty of nature. The expedition is a 10 day affair, first 5 days of acclimatization and next 5 days of trekking from Sangam Chatti Kalyani (a place 18 km from the main city of Uttarkashi)  to Darwa Top(13, 500ft, famous trekking peaks in western Gharwal). We were in total, a group of 37 GETs from TATA Motors Pantnagar plant, and had reached the base camp of TSAF(10 km from Uttarkashi) on 2nd, December, 2012 a place on the bank of Assi Ganga stream. 

Most of us were thrilled with the glimpses of the adorable nature we had witnessed on our way to Uttarkashi and around the base camp site. Some of the scenes were so astonishingly beautiful that  I cannot help arguing them to be most beautiful sights probably in the entire universe, indeed heavenly!!!
I can very well recall one such divine view while we crossed the famous Tehri dam at early dawn on  our way to Uttarkashi, the scene is so live in my memories.  If you happen to plan your visit in the month of December I would very strongly recommend you to start at around 11pm from Delhi that let you pass Tehri dam at a time when its one glimpse would make your journey worth. 

The View at early dawn of Tehri Dam on way to Uttarkashi. Heavenly indeed!!!

Thrilled and excited with all anticipations of what was coming next, we got down at the base camp after a  long journey of around 480 Kms in Cabs from Gurgaon. But there was hardly any sign of being tired. It was chilling cold weather, although the day had been sunny and bright it was getting very cold in the evening. We were asked to settle with our luggage in the four tents which were already erected, later we came to know that it was permanent base camp of TSAF, we did it quickly and after keeping our luggage came out to enjoy the sight, not forgetting to mention the face-book DPs sights were being discovered and every one was keeping a stock of profile pictures from every angle not to miss any view, the side profile, the face cut and don't know what all .. as if stocking  for whole of our lives. Soon the authorities asked us to gather and there was an address by Mr. R.S.PAL who was our chief instructor he welcomed us to an exciting expedition where we would not only explore the nature but ourselves. We were then issued our essential gears, Rucksack, sleeping bags along with inner, Mess Tin,  Kiwi Bags ( a small hand bag to keep all waste of wrappers etc.), and the Mat. We were told of the tough schedule we had to adhere to and basic instructions which had to be followed from the next day, water needs had to be met from the chilling cold  river stream, waking up at 5:30 am for morning tea, followed by more than an hour of exercise and jogging and strict instruction to keep the lavatory  with Jute purdah clean and tidy.  

These instructions started notorious gang talks of the jute purdah toilets and wildest imaginations of mornings in them,  there were laughter busting jokes cracked, some said they would sing others would sit with a dipper torch and some others were more happy to puncture above ideas. The moods were full of energy and mean while it was almost dusk with chilly wind freezing us. We were called up after tea to see a  movie on Madam Bechendri Pal's Everest expedition. By now the notorious instincts were out and so skipping the instructor's  notice one of us fast forwarded the video to finish it in less than one fourth of its time.  Talks and jokes continued of all imaginative conditions of  days to come, till we were in our sleeping bags after dinner.

The valley of the base camp had in its one corner giggling, laughing and excited admirer's of the nature, while the rest of the valley was silent with only the loud gushing music of the flowing stream and a sky with millions of stars shining  bright. This reminded me of my childhood when there were power-cuts at night the sky was similarly so beautiful. We don't get to see such clear bright night sky with millions of twinkling stars now due to pollution.

We woke up next morning which was officially first day of the course by a long whistle, at 5:30 am when morning tea was kept outside our tents. The mornings in a valley are extremely cold and even more worse was to touch water for the daily rituals, ghoshh!!! our hands were numb  as we were rushing to be on time for the morning exercises at 6:30 am. We started jogging up the hill with the  instructor and very soon the whole sky revolved!! it was too much!! we all had no stamina at all. The condition could be imagined with most of us spitting out whites saliva and the whole self acclaimed fitness was sheared apart, but once the stretching part was over it was a satisfactory or rather achievement feeling that made us feel  good for the extra limit we were forced to do.After the exercise it was breakfast time and the  the daily activities began with our welcome on board to the journey of extreme conditions.
 The morning exercise had left a major impact on our memories  and so we could not help our emotions and excitement which were on a sine wave with every statement made to us. By now we did realize that it was not mere adventure and fun it was much more than that, we were going to face in the coming days, we were out in real challenging world where we would have fun and adventure but only with lot of determination, courage and difficulties first hand.

 The instructors had seen us in the morning exercise and based on there experienced eyes they divided us in five groups with an instructor for each. We were five groups and the task for us was to as soon as possible get ourselves going as a team. Our first team activity at TSAF was the trolley game. 

After the game there was day's briefing with the team and instructor we interacted with our instructor Anu Ma'am. Interaction with her made us realize the relevance of the training. She asked us to jot down in a note book our expectations out of this program. 

I wrote something similar to : Wish to test my optimism, to see if for my love of nature I would remain happy with the accompanying challenges. I wish to learn to convert my mental strength and use it to stretch my physical powers. I wish to live a life that have  goals followed by challenges, courage and hardwork needed to achieve it and then enjoy celebrating the joy of achieving it. 

Towards the end of the day's briefing  we played  dumb-charades of phrases. I can recall the two cards which I had to mime first was "Living in harmony" and  "Keeping to the track" it was innovative style of giving us the messages that we would have never took so seriously as we did when we acted them.

This was all before lunch, after the lunch we were trained to pack our rucksacks and there was a special instruction session for care of Feet. It was during this class the sunlight dimmed away and the evening cold took over.  Before the dinner we had some of us playing antakshri splitting us into singles and committed parties and then after dinner we were fast asleep in our sleeping bags.

Next Morning 4th December, 2012 Tuesday I woke up at 5:15 am, I usually by rule do not take anything without bathing on Tuesdays and Saturdays till I offer prayers to Lord Hanuman ji by reciting Hanuman chalisa following it as a self opted custom from class 10th onwards. Its only when I am in train and its not possible I tend to skip bathing but still recite the Hanuman chalisa before having the first meal of day. This morning was again very cold and the adjacent stream was so freezing cold that hands would get numb, so I was not able to gather enough logical reasons to dip my innocent body in that freezing water at 5:30 am and risking my life in this cold valley,  so I uttered a word of excuse to Hanuman ji (who is so good  I know would surely have excused me) and after brushing and dry cleaning (Dry-cleaning being always better :P)  recited my prayers.

The day after breakfast was the an exciting day when we were to do rappelling or abseiling in modern terms, Flying Fox ( when you slide along a rope hanging from a mountain/hill cliff to the bottom) and the the tough Rock Climbing. This day was full of daring adventure.

Life is just like rock-climbing, in order to grow and achieve higher we need to be very wise in choosing our path. We cannot release our grip below, till we find  proper confidence on our next grip &still have an eye on next place to keep our foot. 

The day ended with day's briefing when we sit down with the instructor and the leader of the day jots down in a diary as per his observations his areas of improvement and His Strength. Once the leader is done each member of the team tells these two attributes of the day's leader and also jot them down in the diary. The leader for the next day was also decided in course of the meeting. This part of the training was way important and I liked it for this made me realize the importance of continuous evaluation of ourselves each day of our life and then making necessary efforts to get them in order.  The day then ended with gossips and talks of reactions of each other. 

Wednesday morning was my turn to be the Day's leader and I woke up a little early at 4:30 am don't know exactly the reason that made me wake so early but it was probably due to excitement or sens of responsibility but the major playing factor was the nature's call. Trying to behave like a leader I went to tents of my team mates and checked if they were on time and our team members were already self responsible so every one was on time for exercise. The exercises early in the morning and jogging couple of Kms up the hill was again challenging but we were more strong and knew the pleasure it would bring at the end of stretching. After breakfast we had to be briefed about point to point march which was a team game. After the briefing we were thought to read the prismatic compass and to use maps to discover our sights.  We as a team did fail to register any appreciable performance for we did make a mistake right in the beginning we rushed even before we knew where our our first step was. While Drishti was still checking and spotting the target our team members rushed guessing the target to win fast and save time.

I still have a view that had we been patient a little for 30 more seconds we would have done much better. But the incident did teach big lesson of life, it is something most of us do. we all hunt for shortcuts to success and skip impatiently some steps and the result is we waste a lot of time and energy and finally either quit of irritation of start doing the steps we skipped.

After point to Point march we did learn  to make shelter of survival tents. We learned to tie knots. I can recall we were taught  to tie 1. Clove Knot , 2. Reef Knot, 3.Fisher man Knot, and  4.Thumb Knot but don't know which all would I still be able to tie correctly. The practical knowledge of these knots could be life saving in case we are left to survive. Even if not in jungle the knots would be of great help in day to day needs as well.

The second half of the day after lunch was too exciting,  we were to be out on a survival night in a jungle where we were supposed to erect our own tents and unlike other days would have to cook our own dinner on firewood that we wood search. water also had to be searched.

So After Lunch we left at around 2:00 pm in bright sun for the jungle camp with our rucksacks containing sleeping bags, utensils and ration for the day on our backs, it was heavy. The way to the Jungle camp site was too arduous it was 60 to 80 degree incline.with rolling stones and tough passes. To be very truthful it took everything out of us. Such was the exertion that the body started giving up, sun rolled in front of our eyes and the clothes we wore were all wet with sweat. It took nearly 2 hours of continuous brisk walk to reach the jungle camping site. I remember me and one of my teammate threw our rucksacks as we reached and fell on it like a dying convict who has been shot with number of bullets. 

It took some time before we regained normal breath and collected all courage to start hunting for the fire wood and prepare for the dinner.

More in next post ....

Spending a night in thick Freezing cold hilly jungle in December with open tents and total darkness around .... and then stories of ghosts ...

Cooking and the demands from the chefs.. Introduction to my team mates

Village camp and sad stories of the Cloud Bust at Uttarkashi... the tragic stories 

The D Day leaving for the final expedition starting the trek to Darwa Top.!!! 

When a panther visits your camp....

How I caught my soul which had left my body!!!! the close shave with .......death

Reaching the Darwa Top!!!