Bara Bhanghal

Thamsar~Pass, one of the elusive pass after,  Gauri Jhundha. This one being on the list is still not hugged.

Myself was looking for solo hike up to Thamsar Pass. Going humanly solo means, you need to do a lot of homework before hitting the trail.

Since the monsoon was on its heights, I had to check about the trail conditions before even planning. It was then, I learned about the damaged part of the trail to Thamsar Pass.

What more worst was the news print that read “Bara Bhanghal on the verge of drought”!

I checked with Rijul about the news and he detailed everything about the news print and the “Active” state departments.

It was a surprise for me to learn that, the trail for Thamsar Pass had been damaged from a long time and that no repair work was carried on. More over the allocated Ration Supplies was also on hold from a good two years! Reason being the mule trail was no longer suitable for mules carrying load.

Even the seasonal Gaddi Shepherds were navigating around a longer and risky trail deviating around Palachak.

More digging around the news revealed that, the shepherds and villagers had not received their part of ration for last two years.

With this Rijul started a Petition to raise awareness about the damaged trail and the conditions in Bara Bhanghal. After a successful petition, he went further with arranging a huge donation for the supply of emergency ration to Bara Bhanghal.

He had to take this initiative due to the most active behaviour of the concerned authorized departments. We will not discuss about this on detail.

Anyhow the plea for donation was a “huge+” success with people donating not only from India but from all over the world (Not using the globe word because some believe that this planet is “Flat” means “Flat Earth”, well that is for some other time).

In the meantime Rijul formed a field team of volunteers that would join in for traversing Kaliheni Pass from Kullu and enter Kangra distt in Bara Bhanghal.

The volunteers had arranged for around 60 mules/horses from Manali for selected departure date.

As the day of departure arrived, the team was shocked to know that the arrangement of the mules from Manali had landed in a “Hot Red Cup”!

The system  had done its part and the team was left stranded without any source to transport emergency ration (Rather than supporting the team “The System made sure, that the team gets no mules or horses).

This sure delayed their departure from Kullu but did not deter their determination.
After long three days struggle and emotional stress, the team managed to arrange around 60 mules from Kullu area and some good souls like Mr Yatin Pandit and Kumar Ayush helped up to their limits.

Not forgetting  Mr Bhaskar and Mr Ashish Chauhan of Manali and Kullu who helped us with our stay in Manali and that too without any charge and Mr Amit Katoch of Nagrota who helped with camping stuff and Mr Arvind Sharma of Dharamsala who helped keep our spirits high

To Be Continued…