May 2022, Markha Valley Trek

    Having left Mumbai on 18 May 2022, we spent the next couple of days enjoying a lazy vacation, visiting Dal lake, Shivji's temple, Kargil war memorial and some other places of tourist attraction across Srinagar & Kargil. We spent quite some time on the road traveling from one place to another, proceeding towards Leh, where we had to report for our trek. The email from the trek organisers Trek The Himalayas, TTH, required us to report at Hotel Palaceview near Leh polo ground on 21st May. Effectively what we were doing was - slowly gaining altitude, allowing our body to get used to a colder climate, higher altitude and lower oxygen levels in the atmosphere. As per TTH's schedule we were to report in the hotel on 21 May, attend a team meeting / orientation at 7 PM, overnight stay on 21 May, acclimatisation and sight seeing on 22 May, overnight stay on 22 May and start the trek on 23 May. Accordingly on 21 May we had break fast at Poplar Eco Resort. We met Dr Swamy & hi...

First thing what I noticed about this area, (at this time of the year) was that the sun rises quite early (as compared to Mumbai). The room I shared with Ramesh, had a window which gave spectacular view of the valley on one side. Inspite of the delicate curtains on the windows, I could feel the sunrays gently pecking our eyes as early as 5 AM. As per the time stamp in my mobile camera the following foto is taken at 5:02 AM on 20th May 2022! Sunrise at 5 AM would be something that would be with us for the rest of our trip.     For an hotel that is situated at over 10000 feet above sea level with practically no sea / ocean body within several hundreds of kilometres, the wash room had a very unique wall tile pattern - seashore, starfish, shells, sea and sky - which I could not resist from fotographing! After a good breakfast, we left Rangyule hotel in Kargil on our road trip towards Leh by around 830 AM. I continued to occupy the front seat with the driver of the vehicle ...

  The driver who was to accompany us on the next leg of the journey - Srinagar to Kargil - had warned that it would be better for us to leave as early as possible. Reason being high possibility of army vehicles movement because of which the routine traffic would be halted, resulting in our journey getting delayed. We therefore met the hotel manager of Grand Habib informed him about our leaving early in the morning by 530 AM and requested him to arrange for some breakfast (which was part of the hotel charges). He was sincere enough to admit that the pantry would open ony by 630/700 & that it would not be possible for the kitchen staff to arrange anything in the morning. However after checking with us whether simple bread butter jam sandwich would suffice our requirement, he informed the kitchen staff to ensure that enough of this stuff is kept ready for us either the same night or next morning by 530 AM. The kitchen staff confirmed that the enough bread butter jam would be ready...

  As planned we left Mumbai on 18 May 2022, reaching Srinagar (via Jammu) around 3 PM. We took a cab from the airport and after an hour's drive reached Hotel Grand Habib around 4 PM.  After a late lunch we visited the Shiva temple situated on the top of Shankaracharya Hill on the zabarwan range. This temple is at an height of 1000 feet above the valley floor (6000 feet over sea level) and overlooks the city of Srinagar. The temple is also called Jyesteshwara temple and another name of the hill is Gopadri hills. The climb up the hill set the right pace to our Himalayan Markha trek. On entering the sanctum sanctorum we got to have darshan of a huge Shiv Ling! Adi Shankaracharya is believed to have penned his immortal Soundaryalahiri in these sylvan surroundings. Situated just below the temple, was a small cave with a low level entrance. 4 or 5 people could be comfortably be seated in this cave. This looked like Adi Shankaracharya's meditation room and was named as tapasya sthal....

  It was sheer chance that I got to participate in this trek. A WhatsApp group (of which I had not yet become a part) video call was scheduled to be held on 2 Feb 2022 at 10 PM, the existing members in the group were (1) Vaidy - my brother, (2) Ramesh - my brother in law, (3) Sridhar - old schoool friend, (4) Dr Narayanaswamy - a good friend of Vaidy, Ramesh & Sridhar and (5) Aditya - my nephew. All 5 were trekkers with previous experience of having trekked the Himalayan ranges.      Vaidy added me (with my trekking experience limited to a couple of overnight Sahyadri treks) to the group with an explanation to the other group members that I was also interested in attending the meeting! The agenda of the meeting was to identify a good Himalayan trek within the next 3 or 4 months with duration of about 6 to 8 days. The meeting started at 10 PM with all others participating and suggesting possible himalayan treks, period when this could be done, level of fitness req...