I came to know about Churdar a while ago from an elderly man at Barog. I was cruising in Barog alone, getting a day off from the college. The elderly man and I talked for a while sitting on a rusted bench of an old bus stop in Barog. I shared my passion and admiration for mountains and nature with him. He gave me a nice little suggestion. He said, "why don't you go to Churdar? its highest peak in the Sirmour district". I became curious, I asked him to explain where exactly it is and how can I go there? He stood up and pointed his finger to a dim and distant, barely visible peak. He said he went there thrice when he was young. But he also warned me not to go there alone. He said, it is a dense jungle and it can be dangerous. I was no stranger to the wilderness. When I came back, I googled Churdhar.
A few people wrote about their journies to Churdhar. Churdar as it turns out is also a wildlife sanctuary. Churdhar peak is approximately 3500 meters high and at its top, there is a Shiva temple that attracts devotees from time to time. It is a 30 km trek to the mountain top. There are three stops/summits - Pheli (First), Doosri (Second) and Teesri (Third). A nice little quiet town called Nohradhar is the starting point of the trek. A narrow road from Solan of about 60 kilometers leads to Nohradhar, connecting villages.
Churdar Peak
This last summer, Anuj and I went there to trek 30 kilometers with a bone-shattering, steep path. We could only reach Teesri; the 3rd summit of the Churdar trek. It grew dark, so we decided to stay there, at Teesri, in a Gujjar's hut. His family of nomads welcomed us, offered us tea, food and shelter for the night. It felt awesome! We sat around the fire and had small talk. We slept very tight that night under the loud noise of powerful wind hitting the hut's polythene roof. After a tiring day, we felt cozy. The next day we could have started again for the Churdar summit, but there was this 'little' obstacle, Anuj had a final practical exam, the next day, so we came back. That was then.
This winter there were no clear-cut plans for anything. Just this Friday, Anuj met me in the college and said what's up? I told him I am planning to go home. He asked, how about going to Churdar instead? Well, that was it. I went to his room, spent the night there and the next morning, we were on the road on our bike to Nohradhar.
Reaching Nohradhar, after roaming and exploring we spent the Saturday night at Nohra's forest rest house. We had red wine and a light dinner. The next day sunshine woke us up, we were full of enthusiasm and joy. We went to the market and had some breakfast. We bought some essentials like chocolates, biscuits, chewing gum, a little bag, water, and coke. We were wearing light woolens, and in two separate bags, we had extra pairs of woolen socks, caps, gloves, and jackets, we were ready to beat the cold, and the trek. But suffice to say it didn't work out as we thought.
After walking just 3 km, Anuj got tired and told me that he can't go any further. I was shocked. He said he is not fit this time, I couldn't believe it and neither could he. So we decided, to keep our bags with everything, except chocolates and water at the next hut a few meters ahead. We decided just to roam a little further, to enjoy the view. Being unburdened from the bags, Anuj felt much better and we continued. We trekked 7 more kilometers, making a total of 10. Since we have already been on this trek, we could acknowledge the awesome awe aspiring beauty surrounding us and enveloping us. We said to each other, well why don't we go for the first summit, which by the way, is a magnificent meadow and we liked it so much the last time. So, we walked another 7 km and reached the first summit (Pehli). The meadow this time was partially covered with snow. We adored the spectacular view.
There we changed our minds, again, and that was a mistake. We figured, well we have already been to teesri (thrid) summit, why not go for it? It was 3 pm, and we thought we have time on our side, if we continue the trek without stopping, we can reach Churdar before nightfall, and we can stay at the temple. So, we continued, we couldn't stop ourselves, and we walked and walked, and reached teesri. The day was still relatively young, the sun was still up. And what do we see there at teesri? Oh My Fucking God! We saw enormous peaks covered with snow glittering in the sun. But we decided not to stay here any longer because in our hearts we knew, this is winter, and in just one or maybe one and half hours sun will go down. We were both only had an inner warmer and a shirt on us. At teesri, there was already very much chill in the wind. So, we also wore our sweaters which were hanging on our waists. We were walking, and our bodies were warm. We were overflowing with confidence, so we underestimated almost everything, the time, the weather and the uncertainty of finding the path in thick snow. Yes! thick snow. Teesri was laden with Snow. From there we trekked for about one and half hours. We couldn't see the actual trek as it was covered with snow, rather we were following a trail of footprints in the snow. It was comforting to see those footprints were going only in one direction i.e. towards the Churdar. They were big and were from a single person.
After an hour, the sun was down, and suddenly it grew dark. On top of it, it was a moonless night but there were no clouds, so there was some starlight. Nonetheless, we had to turn on our torch, and for the next half hour, we kept following the footprints. Suddenly the snow grew thin and damn...those footprints were gone! But we didn't panic, instead, we tried very hard to find those footprints in the torchlight for another half an hour but in vain. We knew we were nearby because we almost reached the mountain top, and the temple must be somewhere near. Well, we couldn't find it. From the top though, we could see cities all around us down below. Lights of civilization, the scene was beautiful, to the extreme, but then we realized, that we are very far away from any of those towns. We imagined, how people must be having dinner in those towns, turning on their rooms heaters, preparing beds, quilts. And here we are far away, struck there at night, on a mountain top, in the brutal cold.
At this height, the wind was trying to tear our flesh apart. So we decided, to descend at least to teesri, in the torchlight. We hasted down and reached teesri. Uh... It was biting cold there too. But we were in the state of walking, our socks and shoes were completely wet with melted snow, we could only feel just a little bit of pain in our feet. I insisted we should continue to descend, and reach Nohra. But there wasn't much hope in that plan. We had no extra cells for our torch, and going down, there was a jungle in between, where starlight could not even reach. So, the new plan which had more hope went down something like this -
There was this cemented rain shelter at teesri with cemented roof, four walls with open spaces for left for the windows (umm no windows) and no front door. There was no dry wood nearby to burn. It was 9 pm; 10 hours before sunrise. We had no caps on our heads, no gloves for our hands, our socks dripping wet, and the temperature was below zero and destined to drop several degrees more.
In simple words - We were absolutely fucked. We cleared some snow from the corner of that shelter to sit, and we sat there for 10 hours; gazing at stars and town lights from far and below. The water we had in our bottle froze. But that was okay because we were not exactly thirsty.
Those were the most difficult 10 hours, of our whole life. We sat close together and put our faces in our jackets and zipped them up. We tried to talk, and delude ourselves that there is no cold, but it eventually got us. Our feet lost all sensation, but we could still move them. What a relief no? So, we decided to get rid of wet socks at least, we took them off, and no they were not wet anymore, actually, they were frozen, and you could crack them. We examined our feet in the torchlight, they were blue, but there was no necrosis yet. This was a reversible injury. So, we started rubbing them, there was a little edema too, but we thought if we could just maintain the blood flow in them, we can avoid the necrosis.
So here's what we did the whole night, we talked, gave each other hope, by saying, just in a few hours, the sun will come up, as it always does, from the east, and we can survive. We shall survive and beat this, for the sake of our loved ones, for our parents, for our friends, for our girlfriend (latter applicable only for Anuj only lol) And for our unending love of nature, science, biology, food..... yes food! we talked about all the tasty foodstuffs from cakes, shakes, meats, and vegetables, salads, Chinese, Italian, Punjabi, fried, roasted, spicy, sweet, junk you name it.
And we also went on a strategy to give each foot half-hour of rubbing, and then put it into the shoe, and then another half hour for the other foot and half-hour rest in between. Rubbing feet was euphoric, gently warming us. And we kept checking the time again and again from Anuj's watch, after every half hour we counted how much time, it is left for the sun to show up.
We started imagining and discussing, how the sun will shine again. We started speculating from which range it will show up, and how beautiful it would be and how it takes 8 mins for light to reach the earth from the sun. And where the sun would be now? In which country? In Japan? Maybe. We saw countless meteors in the cloudless night. We discussed how light from these stars must have started in the age of dinosaurs, and we are looking into the deep past, and so forth.
I think we became insane there for a moment because I said to Anuj " Suppose, all of these explode simultaneously becoming supernovae, they all will give intense light and heat, and that heat can warm us" He said in a slow tone - yeahhhhhh right"...and we giggled.
From 9 it was 10, then 11, then midnight, then 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 AM and after that, waiting was the most difficult thing to do, the last two hours, were most uncomfortable, we couldn't wait any longer, and the temperature had dropped to a minimum.
Nonetheless, we discussed, how evolution gave us bigger brains but weaker bodies, Anuj missed his dog too. We thought about Sandy and all our friends, and how would they react in this situation. One of the most comforting things was a discussion of the food we ate, a day before yesterday...Ahem... Well, large fries, large coke, Mc chicken with extra cheese, fish sandwich with extra cheese, and softies. We reckoned how it was one of the best decisions, to have all this fat food and calories in us, before undertaking this journey. And we said this is the first thing that we will do again when we will reach down, to Dharampur (70 Km from Nohra)
Finally, at precisely at 7.12 AM sun came up and we witnessed the best sunrise that had ever seen. And said goodbye to the mountain, with the promise that we will be back in summer again with no mistakes.
