It was 6th time I was traveling to Shimla but the magic of Shimla always made me as happy as if I am visiting for the first time. It was around 12 a.m I reached Shimla with my cousin. I was welcomed by the cold breezes of Himachal, I somehow managed to go to my uncle's home. That night was a bit difficult for me not because of cold weather, but I had to decide where to travel next day, as I had explored shimla numerous times before. While searching on internet, I found a place named as Hatu Peak which is in Narkanda, about 76 km from my place, also known as highest peak in Shimla district, it seemed like I would be having so much adventure tomorrow because there would be lot of snow on the trek way. It was going to be my first winter trek and I was excited too. In the morning I left shimla with my cousin around 12 noon in between we managed to book a campsite for a night in Narkanda. It took around 2 and half hours to reach Narkanda. The moment i reached there i realised that it was bad decision to come here cuz i didn't even found a single glimpse of snow I felt a bit gloomy. Suddenly I came to know that skiing park just 400m away from bus stand, I felt little surprised. Moment I took left and go above around 100m it was snow, snow and snow everywhere I felt like exuberant. Then we rented gum boots to go to uphill. Meanwhile going uphill I found locals kids were sledging on snow on their small wooden made sledge. My inner kid also wanted to do that but i had never experienced that before. Then I saw my cousin trying sledging, that gave me courage to do that as well. I learned all the basics from the local kid about riding that. One and only basic instruction I still remember that, to use string tide on the front of sledge to control the direction of the sledge. The moment I sat on the sledge it started moving and my fear converted to joy. That goosebumps I will never forget in my life.
After doing it twice or thrice I started moving towards skiing point. The moment I reached there I saw tonnes of snow covering the mountain, this was the first time I was experiencing that much of snow and it made me feel so alive. With this all, an another new experience was waiting for me on the hill that was skiing. I found that skiing is nothing but pushing hard and staying calm in a little bend posture. Same as in life, if you want to move forward you have to stay calm and push harder only by yourself, no one else is gonna push hard for you, only thing other people can do is to guide you, as my guide was also guiding us the ways of skikng. After all this I was feeling tired and we left to our campsite which we had booked in the earlier. It was third time i was experiencing camping. We had bonfire with a great dinner served by the organizer 'Mehta G'. He was so friendly and soft speaking person. He told us about history and various places to visit in Himachal Pradesh. After that we all slept it was a bit colder night. In the morning after having breakfast fast we started our journey to our purpose of coming here that was 'The trek to Hatu Peak'. We took taxi to Hatu Peak base camp thats was near about 4 km from Hatu peak while going to hatu peak our taxi driver gave us few tips like don't take shortcuts just be on the trek road because it was whole jungle right there. Before climbing we again rented gum boots and embarked to our trek.
After walking just 20 m two people slipped on frozen snow in front of me that made me little worried and gave me a clue that how much difficult and dangerous this trek gonna be, but my cousin pumped me with confidence and once again we started marching towards our goal. I came to know that there are usually two type of snow trekkers used to find, one is frozen snow that is like ice cubes and very slippery during early morning speacially and the second one called fresh snow that is very fluffy and good to walk with. Sound of walking on a fresh snow was so pleasant to ears. Mean while after 1 km we found lot of people coming back and passing messages that its very slippery out there, this was the second time I was loosing my confidence, this time what made me keep on going was one of a bad experience that just happened recently to me in which, I was very close to the destination but I backed off due to some reasons and I felt guilty. This time I didnt want repeat history so I kept going and going. Snow was getting thicker and thicker as I was moving upward and I saw lot of memorable view in between the trek. Finally after around 4 hours we reached to the top of hatu peak and I felt like I was on the top of the world. the 360 degree view of Himalayan Mountains range was making me full of joy. While doing photography what I found a snow covered bench which was just few inches away from the trench of highest peak of Shimla District. I realized that this is gonna be a mirror to each and every person who is gonna come here, beacuse the one who has managed to come here is a fearless person and faced all difficulties in the way. That bench made me realize that being fearless is going to give that few inches, which will keep you away from any trench that is going to come in your life in future. At last i want to say you guys that be like that fearless bench always in your life.
Writen and experienced by :
Sourav Sharma
