Snow Trek Expedition to Laka

The best travel stories are the ones that teach you something along the road. Being a sports lover, the dream of my life is to experience most of the sports. I remember the cheerful times when I used to play hide n seek, carom, soccer, and now taking up adventure sports with nature. 2015 has been my ninth year to go for Adventurous Trips to North India. As Every year, this time also the place was new and exciting. I would like to thank the Youreka Team for making me a part of this wonderful expedition. This time I decided to do something daring and thus I went for a Snow Trekking expedition to Laka for a time period of 8 days.

Laka is situated on the base of Dhauladhar Mountain Range which is the highest peak of Himachal Pradesh. It is a beautiful valley surrounded by green trees, fresh air, snow, sense of peace, and with a height of 11000ft. This place is located above the Triund peak and one can see the beautiful range from the Triund base camp, which is above Mcleodganj near Dharamshala. I along with a group of 23 others completed this expedition successfully.

The Journey to this long expedition started from Delhi on Thursday night and the very next day we reached the beautiful campus in Dharamshala. After taking some rest and knowing some basic skills, next day we geared ourselves up to trek till Triund. A long trek of 1300m was athough challenging but the scenic beauty of the mighty mountains made it easier for us to do the challenge. We stayed there for a night and began to trek towards Laka the very next day which was our final destination. We reached Laka by Sunday afternoon and for the first time I had experienced Hailstorm in Mountains which was like no ordinary. The snowballs were as big as Ferrero Rochers. After pitching our tents there, we took some rest for sometime which was followed by collecting wood for the bonfire in the forest.

Next day, we began our day with learning some techniques of Snow Craft. As the session got over it again started raining and for the first time I experienced snowfall in the month of June. Temperature dipped below and nights up there were freezing cold. On Tuesday, we went to Lahesh Cave and spent an afternoon in the cave. The cave was surrounded by clouds that were at a height of 12500-13000ft which is one third the height of Mt. Everest. The following night was therefore very challenging because of the continuous rain and cold breeze that hit us. But we accepted the challenge with full courage and fearlessness.

On Wednesday, we trekked back to our campus in Dharamshala and after five days I finally took a refreshing and had a sound sleep on a mattress. I felt incredible and actually patted myself for the endurance I had shown. I got to know the importance of water, kerosene, natural resources, tissue paper, food, fire, wood, and many other resources. For the first time, I lived without any sort of gadgets and internet for five days that helped me explore that there is a much more beautiful world beyond these artificial things. Although, I felt the absence of Internet that connects to the world but its absence helped me explore the other world virtually. I want to keep this spirit of adventure alive in me for all my life. This helps me to be strong, blissful, fresh, and motivated and that helps me to lead a better life ahead.

I hope the next expedition is going to be more longer and challenging than this one!