Pabbar valley is a place which offers many opportunities to
nature lovers: apple orchids, beautiful deodar filled mountains, less explored
destinations, adventurous hikes, snow-capped peaks and spell bounding views.
One of my friend and I took a taxi till ride to Khara-pathar from shimla which is about 85
kilometers away. Our destination was Giriganga , which is about 7 kilometers
hike from khara-pathar.
image source-google maps
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It was second week of the month of December and were not
expecting snow at khara-pathar and giri-ganga . so, we were confident to take
our taxi upto the Giri-ganga Shrine without giving any pains to our legs.
But when we started uphill drive from Khara-pathar we got snow
on the track after 2 kilometers of ride. The snow made it difficult for our
taxi to move further it caused slipping of vehicle instead. So we decided not to
take any further risk and we asked the taxi driver to stay at that spot from
where snow started and wait till we come back.
the uphill drive start here
Now, we had a task of trekking rest 5 kilometers to reach
the Giri-ganaga, which is the origin of river Giri-ganga and a temple is also
located there.
We started the hike with easy pace on snow filled track, we
were also expecting to meet people on the way, so we were walking without much
care taking frequent photography breaks.
After walking about 2 to 3 kilometers we realized that we
have not met a single human soul & adding to that we spotted pugmarks of
some animal on snow.
This was the time when we sensed a degree of fear in our
hearts. We started talking that probably some wild animal, bear or snow-leopard
is also taking the trail and we two are the only homosapien present in the
picture.
We started thinking about our further course of action, we
thought that the shrins would be hardly 2 kilometers away and if we keep moving
we’ll reach there soon and there must be some people at the shrine. So we kept
on moving, but our minds were in super alert mode by now, we were look in all
directions to see any possibility of presence of some mammal: man or wild while
moving steadily. There were few shortcuts on the way but we avoided them
intestinally. After sometime we saw the first view of the Giri-ganga
shrine…huuh what a sigh of relief!
We hurriedly moved to the temple but, God has planned more
surprise for us: the temple and other shelters were locked not a single human
being was present , due to heavy snow the shrine was closed for the season…..damn!
Our fears increased and now our hearts were really beating
fast , one guy and a girl at a desolate valley, away from civilization but its
not Romantic at all. We were thinking that some elusive wild animal could
appear before us anytime.
But, we kept the faith in god and after clicking few snaps
we started our journey back to Khara-pathar. I had also taken a strong stick
which was lying near the temple to encounter any wild animal.
We were moving with fast pace now , thankfully we reached
the spot safely
Finally, we were on the road back to Shimla, I kept that
stick I had picked from Giri-ganga shrine as a mark of remembrance that thrill
filled journey.
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