Finding Arcane -- From Near Death in Dehli to a Life Changing Trek

Hi, my name is Sanjeeb, and I am the kind of person who prefers to stay indoors, attend parties within the city limits, have a couple of drinks, and simply have fun with the gang. That is my mojo, or so I thought it was.

In the Spring of 2019, my buddies and I decided to do something daring and go out on a real adventure.

---

Little did we know that it would change our perspective on traveling forever

---

The details of the trip were as follows:

Destination: Kasol/ Kheerganga (Himachal Pradesh, India)

Journey: Delhi to Kasol ---> via bus (10-12 hours)

Kasol to Kheerganga ---> Trek on foot (6-7 hours each way)

Our journey started in Delhi as we hopped on a bus at midnight. To say the least, the road to Kasol was dangerous. It was as if the driver took up a personal mission to literally kill everyone on the bus. Every single corner of the revolving, butchering, and narrow path through the mountains had us wondering if this was a good choice. It seemed that the bus would fall off the cliff at any second. There was absolutely no way we could sleep, we were nauseated, and extremely cringy.

The next morning, we reached Kasol and booked our stay near the banks of river Parvati. The place that we stayed was so scenic as if we were in heaven. We could not believe our eyes. Can a place as dreamy as this exist?

The image below shows the place we stayed at. It was cold but it was serene.

The same evening, we went for some shopping, cafe hopping, and then we came back to our humble abode to take rest up for our long trek to Kheerganga.

The next morning, we woke early, and well rested to start our trek. After the crazy bus ride, we were happy to find out journey start off in well, chilled out manner. Little did we know, we had a timer on our heads. As we reached the foot of the mountain, we could see snowdrops all around. Full disclosure, this was the first time I ever experienced snow in my life. It was awesome.

Thereafter, we embarked upon the journey of 13 kilometers (8 miles) upwards to the peak, which is called, Kheerganga. We asked each other, ‘is it worth going the distance?’. Of course, we chose the worst possible month to climb this mountain, March as opposed to June-July. The conditions were harsh, to say the least. Since, the path was full of snow and solid ice our feet were slipping like hell. If, we were to fall, we would fall directly into the river.

Slowly and steadily we went up - breathless and hungry. We had tea and noodles in the few small shops which are located midway to the peak. We drank pure water from the melting ice which was found everywhere around us now.

After a long and hard trek for 6 hours accompanied by the mountain dogs, we could see the peak. At this point, it was just 15 minutes away from us. But it was dark and then it suddenly, it started to rain. Rain at that height felt like bullets of ice falling onto us.

We were out of luck as we had no roof above our heads and only ice below our feet. We finished the journey drenched in rain as we ran inside the nearest tent we could find at base camp. So much for coming up.

That night the strangest of thing in the tent happened. We all had the same dream, on our return journey, our feet would be slipping down the same path and we fall in the river. The next morning we came out of our tent. All the disappointment, fear, anxiety, bad dreams, and soreness vanished in an instant. It seemed that nature had gifted us with a prize.

We saw something which could only be seen once in a lifetime for a few people, a double rainbow. It was magical, truly arcane, and mystical.

After that, we had a warm bath in the hot spring near the base camp. Our sore muscles had a huge sigh of relief. We decided it was time to return back with lots of memories. The following day we asked each other these questions. Can we see such magical sceneries around the world? How many are they? Could we go next year somewhere similar? The three of us? WHERE NEXT?

And so, the timid trio was mesmerized by the beauty of nature. FYI: We did not slip and fall into the river on our way back. We also embarked on the journey of cinematography and Travel vlogging. We have our Kasol/Kheerganga experience captured in a musical here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMx-K3zZUOI&t=17s&ab_channel=SanjeebKumarSingh

This was our story. Hope you like it!

Thank you and Regards, Sanjeeb

Fast Five

1. Three hours early to the airport or running to the gate? Running to the gate.

2. Pretzels or Lotus Biscoff cookies? Pretzels

3. Excel planned trip or just wing it? Wing it

4. Favorite continent? Europe

5. Dream destination? Norway