It was a busy office day and I had gone to Northern Railway HQ office, Delhi for some work where I came across a pamphlet issued by NRTMA (Northern Railway Trekking and Mountaineering Association) which mentioned a trip to Leh, including a trek from Stock village to Advance Base Camp for Stock Kangri. Having been a part of a rafting trip down the Ganges in the reaches upstream from Rishikesh and also a parasailing outing with NRTMA earlier, I was familiar with the functioning of NRTMA and immediately rang up the coordinator, Harish Joshi. I got interested as the conversation went on and I decided to sign up.
It was a 10 day trip, involving a 3 day bus trip into and out of Leh.
Pretty soon, I landed up at Delhi Railway Station where we shifted a lot of stuff from the main porch in to the platform where out train was to arrive. We were a group of about 50 and pretty soon were milling about on the platform getting familiar with each other. The train arrived and we were soon ensconced into our berths and were fast asleep. We got off the train in the morning and boarded the Punjab Roadways bus to Manali en route to Leh. I was little prepared for the spectacular scenes that unfolded in front of my eyes, on the second and third day as we negotiated the torturous route on our bus, to Leh.
We stayed in an aptly named hotel at Leh called 'Lung-se-Jung'! As we did not wait at Leh to acclimatise, we were struggling from the next day onwards as we trekked up from Stock village to the base camp and then to the advance base camp. It was an exhilarating experience though and the camaraderie was exceptional in such a big group. As we waited at the advance base camp for the experienced climbers to to go the top and come back, we spent some quality time @ 15000+ ft.
At that time I realized the importance of regular training as I envied the experienced climbers who went to the top. This set me thinking and with the help of NRTMA, I managed to get enrolled for a basic mountaineering course at NIM, Uttarkashi, though I had to get age limit dispensation as I am 38+ yrs old and the upper limit was 35 for the course.
Now I am all set to go to Uttarkashi, where I have to reach on 23rd April 2008, evening. More on this later.
It was a 10 day trip, involving a 3 day bus trip into and out of Leh.
Pretty soon, I landed up at Delhi Railway Station where we shifted a lot of stuff from the main porch in to the platform where out train was to arrive. We were a group of about 50 and pretty soon were milling about on the platform getting familiar with each other. The train arrived and we were soon ensconced into our berths and were fast asleep. We got off the train in the morning and boarded the Punjab Roadways bus to Manali en route to Leh. I was little prepared for the spectacular scenes that unfolded in front of my eyes, on the second and third day as we negotiated the torturous route on our bus, to Leh.
We stayed in an aptly named hotel at Leh called 'Lung-se-Jung'! As we did not wait at Leh to acclimatise, we were struggling from the next day onwards as we trekked up from Stock village to the base camp and then to the advance base camp. It was an exhilarating experience though and the camaraderie was exceptional in such a big group. As we waited at the advance base camp for the experienced climbers to to go the top and come back, we spent some quality time @ 15000+ ft.
At that time I realized the importance of regular training as I envied the experienced climbers who went to the top. This set me thinking and with the help of NRTMA, I managed to get enrolled for a basic mountaineering course at NIM, Uttarkashi, though I had to get age limit dispensation as I am 38+ yrs old and the upper limit was 35 for the course.
Now I am all set to go to Uttarkashi, where I have to reach on 23rd April 2008, evening. More on this later.
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