Everyone's excitement had no bounds when the three days trek was mentioned. I had my backpack packed like a week ago before the actual trek. The bus came picked us up early morning on the 21st October. When we reached the first hiking spot, Shankar sir along with other teachers were waiting for us. After everyone reached the spot, we had a brief session about safety and the rules of the national park. I was so excited that particular moment, only if I knew what was waiting for us later that day. The hike finally started; it wasn't even five minutes walk and the steep hills started already. However, slowly we started climbing slowly, taking pictures, enjoying the nature, resting. It wasn't even an hour and everyone was drenched with sweat and definitely tired climbing that steep up hill. But after an hour and half from the initial spot we reached the first checkpoint and we rested a bit and then again resumed the long hike. Walking, talking, listening to songs, cracking jokes, counting steps in Spanish, French, Nepali we somehow reached the lunch spot. The once bright sky was now all black and cloudy, we expected little drizzling but what greeted us left everyone speechless. Again, after an hour of resuming the hike it started raining. It was drizzling at first and then it turned into a heavy downpour. Drenched in sweat, entirely wet and extremely tired already I asked my friends, " Can this day get any worse?"; and well then soon after that the hailstorm started. We struggled in that cold weather to reach the sheltered place. It was so much cold when we reached the shelter. All of my clothes were wet but i couldn't care less, all my body demanded was rest and warmth. I realized how considerate my friends were, one of them offered me their gloves while other gave me the cap, and truly I felt that warmth of care. However, we had to resume the trek and as soon as the hailstorm we started walking again, the trail more slippery than usual because of the rain and hailstorm. Playing with the hailstorm we soon reached the down hill trail; my body was aching so much but than i couldn't stop, my only option was to reach the camping site as soon as possible, make the tent, change the cold, wet clothes and then rest. This feeling somehow energized me and then i reached the campsite faster than i though i would with minimal rest. I helped Ashlesha with making of tent and then we changed into those "dry" clothes we carried. The view from the top was mesmerizing, it was already dark by the time everyone reached the site and had their tent ready, there wasn't much light so we used our headlamps and torch lights to cook the food. After food and cleaning up, we gazed at the stars while the bon fire was being set up. Later we sat by the fire, sang songs, talked, warmed us, and had a good time. It was the perfect end to that exhausting day, at night however it was so cold. Early morning on 22nd October, Dinesh sir woke us up to watch the sunrise. The sunrise was so beautiful; intoxicated by those beautiful scenes of first rays of sun lighting up the mountains we froze in our respective places. Later, we made breakfast and cleaned up; we got ready for the not so difficult trail to Jhule. The trail that was mostly down hill, singing, making weird noises we reached Jhule and had our lunch. We had time for ourselves that day, no matter how tired we were we couldn't resist the urge to wander around those beautiful meadows. After pitching the tent, we simply enjoyed the sun, clicked pictures, sang songs, talked and had that much required rest. Our last night was indeed eventful, we told horror stories to one another, played truth and dare around the bon fire, caricatured the teachers, laughed and hoped that we didn't have to return the other day. That night we slept soundly, early next day yet again Dinesh Sir came to wake us up for the sunrise. Ash, Aashi and I decided to skip the sunrise part and enjoy the morning sleep. After getting dressed up, packing up we had our breakfast and commenced our short hike of about 45 minutes. After we reached the final spot, the buses were waiting for us. We clicked a lot of pictures, told one another how much fun we had and we missed the trek already.
That eventful, adventurous, extraordinary trek is going to remain in my memories forever. It had fun, fatigue, happiness, enjoyment, obstacles, hurdles but it was simply perfect. I finally returned home smiling, with a lot of memories and thinking "We do not need perfect circumstances to have the best days in our life. In fact, the best days consists of lot of hurdles but we OVERCOME them TOGETHER"
