Day 5 – Bugwabasa – Roopkund – Bagwabasa – Pachar Lauchani - Bedni (4th Sept)

I heard the others leave at 5:40 and tried to catch some sleep. At 8 I got up, got breakfast and joined Deepika and others in their tent. Seems they were not aware that I did not go up to the lake. Theirs was a foregone decision not to go. We sat for some time, watching a movie on Subbu’s mobile. Then we heard a voice outside – it was Ramesh, back from the summit!! He was ecstatic and wet. Then came Sridevi, Vikrant, and Raghu, followed by others. They told us it was awfully cold and steep up there. The porters had to hold and guide them thorugh a major part! The videos that we saw on Rohit’s cam were fabulous. Wish I could describe more about the lake but that lot is not mine right now and in all probability, I will outsource that bit to one of the guys who went up there. :-)

The joysome and ecstatic lot that came down from the lake was required to quickly come back to terra firma, have lunch, and prepare for the long descent.

After lunch, Narendra had to wrench us out of the tents to start the descent. It was a good decision to start as soon as possible, because it took us around 8 hours to reach back to Bedni. The rain was incessant but thankfully, not heavy. The descent to Kaluvinayak was made difficult by strong wind and rain. After this point, it was easy to walk along, what with the air thickening with every step.The sun shone out for a while, giving us a glimpse of a beautiful sunset. The birds chirping by, the fresh green meadows, the gushing water, made for a wonderful descent. As we spotted the Bedni kund, we assumed that we would hit the campsite soon. But the curvy meadows made us trudge for close to an hour to reach the camp. Narendra took us on a shortcut, which meant we had to quickly descend through a steep route instead of walking for a couple of hours on a lesser incline. On our way down, we saw a huge flock of sheep heading from Bedni to our direction. When we crossed path, it was an awesome sight to behold. Never before had I heard such bleating and seen the beauty of a live flock of a thousand sheep. Blessed is the Master Shepherd  who made all this.

After a while, I gained pace and set out ahead of others, knowing that the camp was pretty close. It was pitch dark and the path was wet and slushy. I walked on, humming tunes to keep myself alert. When I reached the camp, it was silent as everyone cozied up in the tents. It was still very windy and the tents would occassionally blow as if they would come apart. The mats in the tent had to be weighed down to keep them grounded. Before dinner, as we lay in the tent, Ritu and I sang out, to keep our cheer. Next to our tent, Chunnu/Munnu aka Abhinav/Srini and Ananth, busy in their own chatting sessions, would shout whenever there was a major pause from us. Dinner was again served in the tent. Poor guys, drenching in the rain again for us.


Over to Wan next day.