Discovering Khobi, where the trees blend into meadows, en route to the Patalsu Peak summit.
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Namaste 🙏
Hope you all are doing great!!!
It was a beautiful day out there in the Himalayas and we were at Shagadung. We were approaching the final patch of forest before reaching the end of tree line at Khobi.
While hiking towards the forest, I came across these vibrant, beautiful flowers. I couldn’t resist them and took a bunch of them in my hand.
Upon investigating with the help of AI, I came to know that they are called Eastern Groundsel and they grow wild in high altitudes. I took them with me to add to my collection of dried flowers!
We were about to enter the forest now and we thought it would be a great idea to capture a photograph in front of the forest. We were looking tiny in front of this huge forest.
As soon as we entered the forest, the environment turned dramatically. The dense forest made it difficult for sunlight to enter the bottom of the forest bed. The sun rays were coming down in patches that added a contrast to the overall vibe.
After hiking through the forest for sometime, we found the trail markings again. We were pleased to see those markings as now we knew we were on the right track.
We could now see the end of tree line. We were soon about to reach Khobi. The view of the peak was also visible from here. At first we thought that it was the summit of the Patalsu Peak but later we realised that the summit was much higher than we expected it to be.
On maps, it was named as the winter summit of the peak because once we reach there, there are loose rocks and boulders above and beyond. Those loose rocks and boulders make it difficult to hike the trail in winters as there is a lot of snow here at that time. Therefore people get to that point and consider it as summit in winters.
Upon crossing the forest, we were now at Khobi. As soon as we crossed the tree line, we were greeted by this rock with directional marking on it and a sarcastic quote that said “Gudiya ban gayi?”. “Gudiya” means doll in Hindi and this sentence in whole meant “Have you become a doll now???”.
Someone must have written it sarcastically as the hike to reach this place was quite tiring.
Just a few metres away from the sarcastic rock, we saw a camp! It looked like a camp of shepherds at first.
Upon taking a closer look, we found out that the people living in that camp were not shepherds but Gujjars instead. The main difference between shepherds and gujjars is that the shepherds have sheep with them and gujjars have buffalos with them.
We approached them to ask about water sources here as we were feeling the thirst after our hike through the forest. They told us that the water source was quite far away and gave us a little water from their camp.
We were now at about 3500m elevation and the views of mountain peaks was quite good. We could see all the mountain peaks thanks to clear weather conditions.
In spite of knowing the directions, we intentionally went a little off track just because we were mesmerised by the views of mountains and peaks we were seeing.
I was really curious to find out the names of the peaks so I opened the Peak Finder app on my iPhone.
Consolation Peak, Sethan Dome, Srigun Tungu and Jodo peaks were clearly visible that day along with some higher peaks like Indrasan and Deo Tibba.
We were super lucky to see such a mesmerising view of the peaks that day as usually those peaks are covered with clouds. It was a dream come for me!!!
We took the right direction after a bit of strolling and saw the saddle above the ridge. We needed to climb up there to see the summit of Patalsu Peak.
There were no trees now. Only meadows and beautiful scenery all around. Everything was picture perfect.
We walked a little further just enough to see the panoramic view of the valley below. I wanted to get drenched in this beautiful view so we sat down here.
It felt like I was in a fairy land or in a set of a fantasy movie. Everything felt unreal and so alive that I wanted to be here forever!!!
But we had a long journey ahead of us with more adventures and amazing views for us to witness so we again started hiking to reach to that saddle.
I will write about my experience of climbing upto the saddle in next blog as this blog is already quite long now.
That’s all for today.
Thanks for passing by.
Peace ✌️
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