Mt Friendship — The Gorgeous tough peak!
Mount Friendship Expedition was held in ending of may month 2018. The team of 13 climbers from Ahmadabad depart from Ahmadabad on 20th May. The best part during the whole expedition was train journey! I can’t describe in words what I felt during train journey, Let I share some glimpse of travelling. You got surprised at the end of this blog! Keep read and visualize what i want to show you! :)
About Mount Friendship!
Mt friendship is located in kullu district of Himachal Pradesh surrounded by various mountaineering range — The Great Himalayan Ranges, Pir Panjal Ranges and the Dhauladhar Ranges.! Friendship is a sky high mountain having height of 17,300/- ft! Friendship peak is a tough trek due to its stiff terrain which also responsible for landslides. A story is made how mountain named Friendship, story was like — Groups of mountaineer from various five countries came to summit the peak but only two countries summited the peak with building one team!, thus they named this peak as a Mt friendship. When I asked him, he added that the time duration of this 1st summit team was time of 70’s. Here I mean “he”, It is our guide during friendship trek A Mountaineer & Rescuer Umesh Raina sir. Friendship is a sky high, snow covered mountain having numbers of streams, grasslands, small rivers, magnificent views and much more!
About Expedition : Let the third pole breath!
Invincible — The NGO conducted this mountaineering expedition to spread awareness about Climate Changes effects in Himachal region. Due to melting of glaciers and unfixed rain the flora & fauna effected, thus whole food chain is disturbing. A great initiative by Invincible NGO to spread awareness of mountaineering field in Gujarat & conduct this type of mountaineering expeditions. The expedition cost was partially sponsored by Invincible NGO! (Now its time to appreciate those volunteers who working hard to run this organization!)
About Invincible NGO :
Invincible NGO is student run organization in Ahmadabad city. The motto of organization is to nature education, youth empowerment through various trekking camps & expeditions. There are total six projects of organization including Sparsh, Youth brigade, Advanature, Udgosh, Shilp & Gyan! There are more then 500 volunteers!
The journey towards heaven just begins!
The team depart from the NGO house to Ahmedabad station with 1st sun-ray and biggest Adventure of life started! We were excited, through it was our 1st mountaineering expedition we cannot seat properly in Scorpio because of excitement. The joy on our faces are countless! We cracked numbers of jokes in one our journey to reach station.
Day : 1 Journey towards the Heaven!
Here starts our train journey! The day we all are waiting for! I can write a whole blog on just train journey, this much our journey was fabulous! There is lots of cuddles of laugh!, Earphones sharing, teasing each other, comments passing, sharing beds, watching videos of training, Bluetooth speaker, bottle fill ups at station, catching running train etc.
After clicking few photos with tricolor we found our seats and settle. The unstoppable talks started withing the start of train! The smiles on faces getting big & big as well as the bonding between team increasing. The best part of expedition i said travelling, because we all are same through fitness, mindset, retrospectives and passionate about our 1st mountaineering expedition. We watched about 40 training videos during journey to Pathankot.
If i tell you about food the train-food was very worst, but we manage with chips. In dinner we remembered the lesson from primary school “Rasikbhai Raso”. The sabji was like made by mistake! The vegitable from sabaji are differ from oil and water! After having that bad dinner we all slept.
Day : 2 Train Journey Continuous…
Morning start with the foggy weather some where in Punjab. After having in the name of breakfast our previous day’s routine started!
We arrived Pathankot at approx 4:30 pm. We settle in hotel stay-well & serviced bikes that we supposed to ridding to Manali! Finally the pure vegetarian Gujarati food we eat after long 18 hours journey. The next day will be the most memorable because of 350 km bullet ride from Pathankot to Manali, So we slept early night.
Day : 3 Practice session in Manali !
Early morning we depart from Pathankot with powerful machine! The journey of 350 km was awesome!!! Here are some memories of Bike Ride…
We got little accident during bike ride. One of us bullet rider got crashed with the road side. This bullet journey was not good as shown in pictures..! It was painful for those pillows who don’t have driving licence. One bike have issues with break. We done our lunch very late so, some of our team members are just over heated! But at the end of the journey places getting more and more attractive & beautiful!
Now our hours of happiness & craziness turning in to hardcore training & various types of session. We reached Manali at 4 pm and we have only 30 minutes to take bath, fresh & change! At fit 4:30 pm whistle blown by Rushisir for our 1st fall in. He briefed us about some technical calls of climbing and we started climbing an artificial wall. My good luck! I got the 1st punishment we called it Chhota Packet. I got punished because i called falls sign of falling… I mistakenly called Fall-in. There is two different meaning of fall-in & falling.
To be frank I understood that this sport takes lots of stamina & practice to perform. After practice of half hours our muscles are burning! Hands and shoulders are crying!!! Abs also feel the pain!
After practice with wall, we all gone for a acclimatization walk which leading Sagarbhai Bhutani(Our Senior). In Himachal region there were no ground available, because of sloppy & stiff terrain. There was a little ground distanced one or half kilometer from campsite we named it “Vankheda-Stadium” . At this ground we warmed up and start climbing the stiff slope as our part of training. The atmosphere in Manali during summer is just too much awesome!!!
At evening around 6 pm we are sitting somewhere in camp site after 320 km bullet ride, practicing climbing wall for two hours and acclimatization walk we got another big surprise! Rushisir briefed us about next morning, He allocate us technical equipment. We supposed to trek with our luggage and sleeping bag. Here our luggage was for two night including snacks during trek like khajur, biscuit, dry fruits, singh etc. During day we mentally and physically exhausted we slept that night in a second!
Day: 4 Trek To Heaven!
Early morning we wake up at 6 o clock and running for bag packing, bottle filling, breakfast, cross checking our equipment & other small things like power bank, knife, snow goggles, buff, woolen cap, round cap, snow gloves etc. We depart for base camp for Bhrigu lake, called Rauli-Kholi. Bhrighu Lake trek is famous trekking place for trekkers. As we came from Gujarat, we everyday surprised with beautiful weather. The format of surprising still continuous… We started our trek from Gulaba for Rouli-Kholi.
Snow capped peak!
A suggestion to all of them who are planning or willing to go brighu Lake. Make sure you have enough snakes & water during trek.
The trek of Rauli-kholi is very tough because it’s sloppy! As we trekking with our loaded trekking bag we felt that our calf getting bigger & bigger! The trek was too much long and it was very stiff climb. One of our team member give up on mid way due to health problem. After mid way trek getting more and more tough, we feel that height gaining..! The surrounding was changing… first we saw in our opposite side snow capped mountains than little trek from sky high devdar trees than sloppy ground than flat grassland shown in upper selfie than we crossed large streams than we finally reached at our destination Rauli-Kholi at around 7:30 pm. We all are facing headache because low oxygen level due to height. That was the critical situation for all, we can’t think properly, that feeling was too bad. I was facing HAS(High altitude sickness). Rushisir made us Khajur Milk when we reach. The best thing i liked during this trek was that we all are building a stronger team, we are learning to put trust on each other. During whole expedition Mountain taught us lot! Around 10 pm our dinner Khichdi was ready! The night was memorable because we did not sleep properly due to sickness, we dreamed so much dreams that night! (Yes, this kind of things happens in high altitude mountains!!)
Day:5 Morning in HEAVEN!
We wake with sunrise in grassland, I saw pure white snow coward mountains at eyes open! (Let me mention that I was 1st time watching this type of snowy mountain from tent! So I am the one who surprised more everyday.😁) It is four months of expedition I writing blog and I still visualize that beautiful seen! 😍 There were three side mountain one side valley that we can see open sky and long distanced snow peaked Mountains!! From few steps there was a small river or we can call it large stream was passing. We used that crystal clear water in drink and other uses. The East side mountains & grassland have numbers of streams small & large.
The time is arrived for what we gained this height! We were going to conduct various practice on snow & ice! We supposed to learn there how to walk and climb in koflach shoes, how to use ice axe and other ice climbing equipment like ice screw, gators, ice pitons, etc. As it was our first expedition we have to workout more. We done a whole serious of videos in YouTube on Ice Climbing. We have skilled for rock climbing so training was not much hard for us.
Around 11 am we leave back Rauli-Kholi and focusing on our goal Bhrigu Lake! With all the equipment, ropes, mattress and sleeping bag in our rucksack we started our march to summit Bhrigu lake with Bluetooth speaker, goggles and in one hand Ice axe (The feeling when you carry first time ice axe was just awesome🖤). Firstly Sagarbhai lead us as First-men and after some halts Rushisir and Sagarbhai changes first-men to last-men. Being frank let I tell you what I actually felt during trek. I have dropped one of my engineering exam for this exam, I have done regular practice before expedition during exam time. I love to go on expedition where I push my self to next level. A bunch of life-skills, a team like family, learnt mountaineering in snow terrain, trusting on others, taking responsibilities, being active and learnt to be on ground after reaching 17000 ft height. I never dreamed before 4 moths that i will be select for any mountaineering expedition… An Invincible Ngo sponsored me to this expedition and it was a feeling that i can’t describe in word. I learnt to use we either than we! It was a team that summit-ed Mt Friendship. Oh sorry…! I got sentimental!
We took lunch which we carrying during trek with us. The surrounding getting changing from Greenland to white soft snow. It was all snow & Ice we are walking on. There were some hard climb which making our summit more and more tough.
Finally around 3 pm we reach Bhrigu Lake. I thought it is too far when we reached their, so excitement of reaching Bhrigu Lake is not so much. There is no scope that we celebrate the summit, because our goal is to summit Mt Friendship.
As we climbed to brighu lake for practice and acclimatization, we climbed nearest peak at brighu lake. Top of that peak we seen other side of it where we watched sarpass area and other peaks which names I don’t remember now. We spent half and hour at that peak and returned to brighu lake. We pitched tents and some of us trying to light-up the disal stove which we carrying with us. Stove didn’t fired because the density of disal is high, we have to add salt in diasal to light-up but we didn’t know about that time. Now our exam of being mountaineer started! That night was survival night. We eat some snacks only that night which some of us carrying to eat during trek. That night was unforgettable, because that night we talked lot till late night. It sounds good? Let I tell you temperature was getting low and one of us vomiting that night too.
Before two week I was watching the old pictures of Mt friendship and reading about Mt friendship it’s weather, terrain etc. And that night I was facing that weather… Some how it makes me feel arrogant that I climbed but in other hand it makes me feel that without any of the team member I won’t reach their. That day understood the team work. Night on high altitude is very uncomfortable. You can’t sleep at night. I feel little headache and just watched numbers of dreams at that night. I feel like I didn’t slept.
Day:6 Trek back to Manali!
After sleepless night, I wake up before sunrise. I was watching brighu lake from my tent. For Himalayan people’s view is normal, but for me it was very charming to see half bronze lake and snow capped peak! It was very cold in morning too. We forgot to took shoes in side at night so our shoe are harden like rock. I and Swapnilbhai came out from tent try to wearing hardened shoe, take ice axe in one hand make a video. After some time everyone wake up and came out from tent one by one. (To be continued…)