Bhrigu lake amidst Rain, Fog and AMU

Day 1

Chandigarh

I along with 3 other college friends decided to trek to the famous high altitude lake in Himachal Pradesh called Bhrigu Lake. We planned on doing the trek without a guide. We're not carrying tents and sleeping bags with us and rented them on the way.

About Bhrigu Lake Trek :

Altitude: 14009 ft or 4270 m above sea level
Starting point: Gulaba (around 15 kms from Manali)
Best time to visit: June to September (Although we were doing it in the month of November)
Difficulty: Moderate
Known for: Beautiful meadow
Total distance: 22 kms(Start to end)
Permit: No permit required
Total trip cost: 4000 per head

Manali

We took a overnight Volvo to Manali which costed us 800 bucks each. Reached Manali the next morning, had breakfast and hopped onto a taxi to reach our starting point for the trek Gulaba.

The taxis in Manali are not at all cheap. The taxi driver charged 500 per person from us just for the distance of 15 kms. We had no other option to take the taxi as we're already late. We started the trek at around 11 am.

We planned on reaching Rola Khuli( Around 7 kms from the starting point) and push for the summit the next day.
I was the only experienced trekker in the group. It was first Himalayan trek for a friend of mine and just second for rest of the two.

The meadows appeared only about half an hour into the trek. It was beautiful. Flowers on green bed of grass all around us.

Photo of Bhrigu lake amidst Rain, Fog and AMU by Divya Bhardwaj

At around 4:30 in the evening, when we're close to reaching the base camp, the weather worsened. Local people already had warned us about unpredictable weather during November. There was fog all around and also it began to rain. We're not carrying rain coats/ponchos. All we could do was keep walking. We walked in the rain for another hour, slipping and losing balance, when we reached Rola Khuli. There were a few tents pitched already. After negotiation we agreed to a package of 1400/person for stay(tent+sleeping bag), Dinner, breakfast (summit day) and unlimited tea.

We had rice and dal for dinner and went off to sleep early at around 8pm. The rain had stopped for sometime but it started pouring again at around midnight. Water started leaking inside of our tent, our sleeping bags were wet too. My phone had already run out of battery. This night was probably the most difficult night of my life.

Day 2

Two of friends fell sick during the night and refused to push for the summit. They however insisted us to push for the summit.

So now it was only two of us. Despite having a grueling day and night and not adequate rest, we decided to give it a go. The odds were not in our favour though, we did not know if the weather will be good.

We started early at 6 am. The summit was about 4-5 kms from where we camped. We had to reach there in time so we could return before the weather worsened.

The climb was steep. Harder than yesterday's climb but that is the thrill summit day brings. After yesterday's night our minds had become stronger. It took us around 5 hrs to reach the lake.

The lake was a small and frozen in the middle. There was snow close to the lake where the sunlight couldn't reach.

We stopped by around the lake for half an hour and than began descending. It took us only about 2 hours to reach Rola Khuli where our friends were waiting for us. They were better now. They had taken medicine which our tent owner gave them.

We drank tea and reached Gulaba in around another 2 hours.

To save money we waited for a bus coming from Leh and boarded it to reach Manali.

We took a overnight Volvo from Manali to Chandigarh for 950/person and reached Chandigarh the next day at around 4 in the morning.