8 APRIL 2023 SATURDAY - KHOPARA TO PAUDWAR VILLAGE
Altitude Loss : 11,975 ft to 6,561 ft
Trek Distance : 8.5 km | Trek Duration: 6.5 hours
Today was another morning when I preferred to enjoy my sleep over going for an early morning walk. One group of trekkers wanted to make the most of the mountains. They got up early and went for a short trek in the early morning snow. Vivek was mentioning that the day's walk would be long. My only concern was that the trail should be free of snow. Shure & Vivek confirmed that since the direction in which we would be descending is on the sun facing side, it is unlikely to have snow on the path. I felt thankful for that, because the little distance that I did walk on snow, I was not comfortable.
After tea, pack up & breakfast (I repeated porridge & honey) the members assembled for a group photo. We had 2 sets of group foto of the full group, one with the Indian tricolour national flag & the second one with the TTH banner. Sridhar had got along the tricolour & all group members preferred to have a solo picture of theirs proudly holding the tricolour.
We started the walk by 9 AM. And what a walk that was! After the initial stages the trail comprised of staircases. Staircases roughly cut into stones. Staircases of various shapes, sizes, heights. Square ones, rectangular ones, semi circle, triangular, practically all shapes one could think of.
After a couple of hours I started feeling that this should be code named as stairway from heaven to earth. From the heights of almost 12,000 ft where we were walking in the snow, where the snowy tops of mountains were almost at eye level, to descending to around 6,500 ft where the rooms would be relatively warmer, no need to wear thermals at night, more variety of food..
On 3rd April 2023, Monday we were at around 6,500 ft at Ghandruk. Since then we have been gradually climbing up. Ghandruk to Tadapani (6561 to 8705), Tadapani to Dobata (8705 to 11225), Dobata to Chistibang (11220 to 11811), and then Chistibang to Khopara (9678 to 11975).
Notwithstanding the one day unscheduled halt at Dobata, it would have meant 4 days walk gradually climbing up. But here we were, scheduled to descend what we would have climbed over 4 days in a matter of 6/7 hours. I felt that today's walk gave me some of the best views of the valleys.
It had taken us 6 solid hours of
walking. Of course we had the standard breaks whenever we felt the need
for it. Around 130 PM we reached a cozy local hotel where the
proprietress invited us for some cool refreshing chhaang (local beer).
Again it was our group of 4 plus Vivek who were the slower walkers. By
the time we reached the tea house at Paudwar it was almost 3 PM. My
amazfit showed the steps count for the day at around 19600.
After the marathon climbing down session, we felt too tired to sit down for lunch. But having had only a bowl of porridge for breakfast, my stomach was demanding some food. The hostess of this tea house had a neatly handwritten menu in a note book. There were several items. I opted for fried rice, which was very tasty (or probably felt tasty to my starving stomach & tongue which had been tasting only dal and rice in the past few days)
Tea was served at 530 PM. Dinner at 730 PM. Before realising it I was in my room and fast asleep, oblivious to everything around me. Only when Sridhar asked me next day morning whether I had completed the novel which I was reading, I realised that I was so tired that I had totally forgotten about it.
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