In the lap of mighty mountains!
This is the story about the journey towards dear Mt. Friendship. The height of the Mt. Friendship is around 17352 ft, situated in the Pir Panjal range in the Kulu district of the Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh.
Invincible NGO was sponsoring this whole expedition and also training us for successful summiting. To build up our physical strength, proper exercise routine was given which includes daily 5km running, 40 PushUps, 12 PullUps, 5 one leg squats, 30 crunches and 10km of cycling!
We were reporting and based on this and many other parameters, the list of selected participant declared. When I see my name on it I was extremely happy! Just thinking about the upcoming experience making me feel something unique!
Now I was eagerly waiting for the departure day
And the journey begins!
Finally, the day came and we were ready for our first Himalayan mountaineering experience! Our journey starts with lots of equipment and full of enthusiasm. Around 2 days journey of the train and then van to reach the Manali became too small with friends.
We reached Manali and rest for a day, enjoyed Garaba and the beautiful scenery.
Next day we started our track to the Mt. Friendship. Till Dhundhi, Solang valley we reached by van. Due to traffic, we reached Dhundhi by evening so we decided to set camp and stay there for a night.
The view and the feel there was awesome! The place was surrounded by green mountains, river, snow-covered mountain and a valley. We spent that night in rain under the tent. After a night, a beautiful sunrise was waiting for us. A golden mountain with the sweet sound of the river.
We started our track towards lady leg after breakfast. lady lag is the basecamp for many mountains of PirPanjal range.
The track was awesome with beautiful views. We all were with our full luggage. In starting it was very easy and towards the end, everyone started exhausting as we are gaining the altitude so less oxygen. The whole track was of around 12 km.
Finally, we reached the lady leg and suddenly we were in a situation kind of thunderstorm. We just started pitching the tents and due to high wind speed, our tents got out of control. We lose two tents and that went away in the valley. We all were out of energy and need to handle this situation which was very hard. After some time everything got settled down and we fixed our camp. Our local guide prays the mountain to make the god of mountain happy and to wish our expedition towards success. They made delicious Lapsi.
At this beautiful place, we almost spent 5 days due to many reasons like we got our equipment delivered lately. Then our team was divided into two part and we were in the second part so need to wait for another team to summit.
So we spent these days for exploring nearby places, training our salves for crampons, ice climbing, descending and techniques for ice-axe.
From the nearby, there was a peak from where we can see Vyas Kund, Hanuman Tibba and other beautiful mountains.
Every day there was the best day since today! Each day has a new experience, new weather and new thing to do!
We went nearby to practice climbing and habituated with the special kind of shoes.
At that hight, we are exhausting too quickly due to the low oxygen level.
The first time we experienced the snowfall and that is also at this beautiful place.
We were spending our whole day full-on snow! sleeping, eating and everything! We are very thankful to our Maharaj who was preparing such delicious food at that hight
The best part of this place was, the goal was in front of us and calling us to come early as soon as possible — the peak of Mt. Friendship!
We were like an arrow in a bow and ready to shot to the summit!! And finally, that day came. The path was divided into two-part. lady lag to summit camp and from summit camp to summit. We reached the summit camp and take well-needed rest as we were going to start towards the summit at 12:00 AM that night.
That whole day weather was unclear and the peak was hidden behind the clouds. We had a little fear if the weather gets cleaned before 12 or not! That day there was snow, rain and cool high-speed wind.
We had lunch and instructed to sleep but no one was in a mood of sleep due to the excitement of the next step! We wake up at around 11:30 PM. We filled out tummy with hot Maggie and our pockets with dry fruits.
And we were ready for the journey! We started to climb at around 1:00 AM in freezing temperature of around -10° C. As we are going up it was becoming too hard to breathe. Our body reached that level where we were just able to make 3–4 steps and then take rest for few seconds. And we can not take rest for more than a minute because of such low temperature.
We started to climb in the night because at night usually, snow is hard so it becomes easy to traverse and has less risk of fall into crevasses. Slowly the sun started to enlight the snow and we take a little rest to gather all the team members at the same place as we were going to rope up later on. The upcoming path was stiff and risky.
With the help of each other and the motivation of the team members finally, we reached the top. Our guide prayed the mountain to thanks as the mountains allowed us to come on top of him. We felt something different at there. The feeling which can’t be expressed by words. We enjoyed the beautify scenery and the sunrise.
We weren’t totally at the highest point to respect the mountain. We stayed a few feet below the top.
We can not stay at peak for more time as the weather there is totally unpredicted. After reaching the top our body got refilled with full energy! We spent around 15–20 mins there and started downclimbing. For descending, we walked for a few hundreds of feet and once the incline lowered, we started sliding. Those were the biggest slide one can ever experience!
After too many long slides we reached back to lady leg. We had a well-needed lunch and say goodbye to this place! And started to go down towards Dhundhi.
Our team will never forget the journey from lady leg to Dhundhi because of the terrifying experience. We started to go down without any guide at around 4:40 PM.
Everything was going smooth. Some of our team members were really out energy as we summited the Mt. Friendship on the same day so we divided into two-part as per the speed. Slowly it is becoming dark and at around 8:00 PM we were now out of the direction and stuck in the jungle. And also there was a fear of Bhalu (bear). By signalling with the torch, both part first gathered and then with the help of some other camp nearby we figure out the route and reached at Dhundhi at around 11:00 PM. And from there by ven, we reached Solang valley and then Manali. The delicious Mohan thal was waiting for us at Manali.
Next day at Manali we went for a stream walk and then an artificial climbing wall. And then Garba! There night there was a Bada Khana!
At that night after dinner, we were going to start travelling back to Ahmedabad. We enjoyed the whole journey and also the destination. The teammates are now the best friends!
And this beautiful page of my life ends here with the wish of more such pages!
