A Tent, Dog, four of us, and the Kareri Lake( Himachal Pradesh) - Part Two

Hi,

It was an adventurous trip so far. Read the first part here: part 1

We met no himalayan bear or any other of its kind, and when the sun rose above the mountain peaks, we felt a new wave of energy.

A dog is a good friend on trek.

Everything was at its place, making the whole scene beautiful. The first thing that we generally do in the morning is brushing the teeth and emptying the bowl, but I couldn't find an easy place to do the latter. I had to hike up to the other side of the stream bank and find a secluded corner behind the big boulders.

Ranu Ram Hits the Dog

After packing the tent, a click at the camping site.

Though there were many big boulders on this side too, but as it was on the trail, I didn't want to create the mess. The stream was ice cold, but we managed to do the essentials.

Our yesterday's friend- the black dog showed first and then a little later Ranu Ram came and asked us to have tea with him. He was having a long and heavy stick in his hand.

 I thought that he owed the dog, and I was offering him apologies for not having enough food to give it to the dog last night, though it had helped us in some way.

Deepak, Avdesh and our camping site.

Ranu Ram gave a heavy blow on the back of the dog, and said that dog had followed us for the food only. The dog barked in pain and vain, because none of us had sensed the blow, it was sudden and painful for both of us - dog and me. I came to know that it was not his dog.

Niund's soulful water.

Although Ranu Ram talked to me for about fifteen minutes, but I hated him for hitting the dog. We left the place early in the morning, the trail went almost parallel and along the Niund stream. It was again a steep ascent, and so we had to take few minutes rest halts in between.

The Tasteful Rice and Lake.

We reached the lake before 12:00 PM, while Sun was shining. There was one person inside a small shop hut. He offered us tea and rice, which we ate with delight, though we found a small insect in the meal. The stomach needed the food so badly that rice tasted better than ever before.

The temple at the lake side - Kareri Lake.

After drinking tea, Deepak, Roushan and Avdesh decided to lay down for rest, and I wanted the same but, because we had to descend early, I decided to take a stroll around the lake.

Tasteful Rice and Kareri Lake.

It was not a stroll of leisure, on the mountain side of the lake, big boulders of the moraines had to be stepped up and down. I took about half an hour to complete that one round. A half melted glacial ice sheet was visible at mid height of the mountain peak, which rose from the bank of the lake. This ice was the source of the water for the lake.

At the hidden corner of the lake, I found the Gaddi shelters, few animals were grazing the green grass. This was the end of the walkable terrain, after the shelters was a sudden fall of a horrifying depth. The depth was not totally visible because of the mist and fog which I could see to be flying up from those depths.

Kareri Lake - year 2015

A whirl of wind from the side of the mountain peak was blowing to this end of the corner which made the fog disappear before it could reach the height where I stood. It was a memorable scene, I felt as if I stood above a cloud, that could not reach to my height. I clicked few shots, but it was in vain, because after a while I could see nothing in that fog. I came back after clicking on the shelters.

We said goodbye to our feeder, asked for his contact no. and started on our way back down. The back journey was fast, as the weather showed the sign of rain, we had to be fast. It started to drizzle when we crossed the place of our last night camping. It became disturbing when we reached a point where the trek diverged into two - one generally preferred by trekkers and other for the mules to carry the luggage.

We waited to slow it down, and then we took the second(trail for trekkers), while ascending we had taken the one for mules not by choice, but we didn't not about it yet. We met the two boys of the group from the Punjab that we had met yesterday. They had stayed at the village yesterday and as  other members of the group had decided to go back, only those two were on the trek. They still had more than half of the trek to cover and it already was raining. We advised them to camp at the place where we had camped.

We reached at the village at around 4:00 PM in evening, and returned the rented sleeping bags and mats to the owner. Then we started along another very steep descend from Kareri village to Ghera. We missed the last bus from Ghera to Dharamshala, so we hired the cab and stayed at Dharamshala for the night.

Thanks!!