The high road to fun

Why let the R word dampen your holiday spirit? Here's how you can enjoy an action-packed vacation in Himachal Pradesh, with some help from the Youth Hostels Association of India

Why let the R word dampen your holiday spirit? Here's how you canu00a0 enjoy an action-packed vacation in Himachal Pradesh, with some help from the Youth Hostels Association of India

For those of you who would love to see snow while the mercury climbs relentlessly back home, you needn't take the first flight to Switzerland. Himachal Pradesh offers you enough snow to have fun with at a height of 12,000 ft and above. And it's almost free.u00a0

I'm saying this because years ago when I visited Kashmir, one brief ride on a small wooden plank (the local version of a sleigh) was Rs 200 for less than 5 minutes!

In contrast, in Himachal, there's loads of snow, even at this time of the year, but the climb will take you 5-6 days. Not to worry, it's not one continuous climb.

ALL KITTED UP for the climb: The author on the Himachal trek

Hurray for YHAI

The Youth Hostels Association of India (YHAI) organises trekking camps in Himachal with the help of trained volunteers. YHAI has been running these programmes for years now. They started off in the Jammu and Kashmir region, but once the strife started in the valley, they shifted base to Himachal Pradesh.

YHAI is trying to add on more routes in Uttaranchal and other places.

The price ranges from Rs 600 (for the children's nature camp) to Rs 2,765 (foru00a0 the trekking camp for those over 15 years). There is no upper age limit. Even people in their 50s and 60s can do the trek if they are fit.

Before you start on the trek you need to get to Delhi at your own cost. Then, take the inter-state bus to Himachal. Mention the name of the YHAI base camp and the bus will drop you there.

Stay smart

Avoid private buses or you may be cheated. You will get tickets no doubt, but the same ticket would have been sold to someone else by another agent. When you get into the bus, you will find someone else, usually a foreigner, in your seat. In the toss up, the foreigneru00a0 will be given the seat and you will have to 'adjust' in the driver's cabin! Once you reach the base camp, you can dump your stuff in the tents and chill out, make friends and enjoy the scenery.

The first two days at the base camp are meant for acclimatization. There will be morning exercise, after which you will learn to cross the river tied on to a rope across the water. (Don't fret, the practice session will be over a dry strip.) You will be harnessed and you need to pull yourself along the rope. You also learn rappelling, which means you descend a rock face dexterously with harnesses to support you.u00a0

Advice from a pro

The afternoon before the actual trek is inspection time. You leave all your belongings in one tent or in some rooms rented nearby and carry just one pair of clothes in your rucksack besides the ones you are wearing.

Travel light is the sincere advice. Turns out so true because within a few days, you don't even want to carry that one set of clothing! Day 3 to Day 8 or 10 will be the actual trek.

You leave the base camp after an early breakfast and with packed lunch. Start trekking in your own groups of friends or make new ones along the route. Enjoy nature, stop to eat and then move on to the next camp.

There is only one path, so you can't take the wrong one. At points where you are likely to get confused the recce group would have painted arrows.u00a0

The view from the top is great. For most parts, the river, Parvathi, flows way down in the valley. But we are warned right at the beginning, "Look where you are going, otherwise you will go where you are looking."

Before sundown, it's dinner and then camp fire. Thankfully, trees are not felled for the wood, but we pick up whatever twigs we find around. So it is not a huge fire. But the spirit remains. It's interesting to hear regional songs and watch some energetic dances by the enthusiatsic ones in the group.

Then, it's time to sleep as there is no electricity to light up the place and no TV to watch!

New adventures

Each day you are sure to find a different type of terrain u2013 sometimes sandy paths and sometimes paths strewn with pebbles and acorns. In the beginning you enthusiastically pick up as many acorns as you can to take home as keepsakes, but later you find them too much to carry and you leave them right there.

Close to the penultimate day of your climb, you reach the snowline. Everyone scrambles to play in the dirty snow close to the muddy path, not realising there's so much more cleaner, virgin snow as we move upwards.

After that, it is sliding down the slopes for free and snow fights and picture-taking before moving to the camp.

The finale is really here, though of course there is the last camp to visit and spend the night before returning to base camp.

By now you have made lots of friends and are loathe to leave.u00a0

Usually, groups of adventure enthusiasts go on to visit the rest of Kulu Manali on their own. Most people love to try river rafting in the Beas, while some go to Manali to try out paragliding or do a short mountaineering course.

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