The trek to Chandranahan - June 2014

The Pabbar near Sandasu

The Pabbar river, a tributary of the Tons and eventually of the Yamuna originates in a range of the lesser Himalayas known as Gangdari Dhar. 

I had spent several days at the government guest house in Sandasu along the Pabbar river waiting for my trekking companions to turn up, keeping myself fit with long walks. A day before our planned meeting I was informed that the trek had been cancelled. 

I decided to explore Pabbar valley on my own. At the dhaba across from the guest house I learnt that it was possible to trek up the Pabbar valley to Chandra Nahan, a series of lakes that fed the Pabbar river. Guides (usually shepherds) could be found in Janglik, the last habitation on the Pabbar. I made a plan to visit Janglik the next day. What follows is the record from my diary.

6th June: Sandasu - Tangnu - Janglik - Sandasu

View from Tangnu

My day starts with morning walk of 4 km followed by chai and breakfast of alu offered by the Lala at the dhaba opposite Sandasu government guest house. I catch the 8.30 bus to Dhamwari. Reaching Dhamwari, I find that I have just missed the shared taxi to Tangnu. I start walking on the Tangnu road in the company of a Rohru resident who is heading for a job interview at the hydro project upstream.

After walking 2 or 3 km, we get a lift in a jeep. We pass a dam site with construction in progress. Retaining walls along the side have collapsed - I learn during the floods of last year. This is a mini hydel project - 2*25 MW, one of many along the Pabbar and its tributaries. Construction seems lackadaisical - there are few workers to be seen, structures are incomplete and rubble strewn around the sites with none of the original greenery left. Metal roads have been turned into dusty tracks exposing road users to a constant cloud of dust.

Tangnu and its fields

The jeep drops me in Tangnu, a sleepy village with a single shop. I learn that guides to Chandranahan will be found only in Janglik. The shop keeper informs me of a shortcut to reach the place if I am walking.

Janglik is on the right bank of the Pabbar like Tangnu, but separated by a deep chasm created by a tributary of the Pabbar, the Supin Khad. The road to Janglik winds down from Tangnu to bridge the chasm and then rises again. The short cut I take cuts through paddy fields to the bridge. On the other side, the road has turned to mud and rubble from the movement of heavy equipment. There is a dust haze over a barren area with warning signs and heavy earth working machinery. The Pabbar lies to the right. The road ascends a steep hill to the left to Janglik village.

Rubble on the banks of the Pabbar at Janglik

Village temple, Janglik

The entire hillside has been taken over by the hydroelectric project to house workers  and equipment. The project goes by the name of Tangnu Dhamwari (Romai) hydel project executed by the Tangnu Romai Power Generation Pvt Ltd. ( apparently a special purpose vehicle of PCP International Ltd and the NSL group). It is one of the many projects coming up on the Pabbar river. 

The waters of the Supin Khad are diverted into a tunnel three km upstream of its junction with the Pabbar. The tunnel goes through the hill on which Janglik village is located and deposits the waters of the Supin Khad into the Pabbar a little upstream of the natural confluence of the two, where a barrage dams the waters of the two rivers.

It is extremely unpleasant walking on the dusty road under a hot sun up the hill. I find shortcuts used by the workers and scramble up till I reach what is presumably a canteen for project workers. Here I find a Janglik villager who is prepared to take me to Chandranahan the next day. We settle on his fee and the logistics for the trip after which he takes me on a tour of the village.

My guide, Shish Kumar has some sort of casual employment at the project - he claims to be a supervisor of a work gang earning Rs 12000-15000 a month. He is willing to absent himself without giving notice to go with me. At his home I meet his wife and his 80 year old father who is wrinkled beyond imagination. Waiting for the lunch - khichidi - to be prepared, I have some time to get acquainted with Shish Kumar.

View from the road near Tangnu

Janglik school has only one teacher. Shish Kumar prefers to send his children to a private school and they stay with their aunt away from the village. He does not get much income from his land - the apple trees are only 10 years old and not mature and the condition of the roads makes it difficult to transport and sell cash crops like potato and onion. So these are mostly consumed locally. Shish's ancestors are shepherds and he still owns a large flock though he has outsourced its care.

One end of Janglik

What does he think of the project, I ask Shish Kumar. Good and bad, he says. Good because there is some employment. Bad because drilling disturbs the water table, the cattle, and causes other damage. I ask him if he has already experienced problems. He says not yet, but is convinced it will happen.

In spite of maintaining a brisk pace and using all available shortcuts, I miss the 2.30 bus out of Tangnu. After walking a bit, I get a lift in a jeep that acts as a school ferry, transporting teachers from a school near Tangnu back home closer to Rohru. Two women police constables board the jeep. They have been recently posted from Mandi to the project area. Smartly dressed, confident, bright, they hold their own among the male government officials in the jeep. The main problems they have to deal with, I learn, are fights between workers and stealing of company property.

Shish Kumars House, Janglik

7th June: Sandasu - Chirgaon - Sandasu - Tangnu - Janglik

It is a slow day. I walk to Chirgaon and do some shopping in preparation for the next days trek. That evening, I return to Janglik and stay the night with Shish in his 2 story wooden house. He has arranged a sleeping bag for me that we will carry. Hiring a tent turns out to be very expensive, so we plan to stay in shepherd shelters.

8th June: Janglik (9300 ft) to Litham Thatch (11600 ft)

We start our trek from Janglik at 5.30 am catching the trail above the village. The first part of the walk is through a forest of kail (Pine). Breakfast stop is at 7 am by which time we are at 10000 ft. We reach a meadow at 11000 ft named Dayara at 9.45.

Dayara

A group of shepherds are gathered around a fire and Shish heads straight for them. He explains that we should meet them as we will be staying at their camp in Litham Thatch that night. We approach warily watching the sheep dogs that have sounded  the alarm. 

Shepherds camp at Dayara

Getting closer, I see that a ram has been killed and its entrails are being cooked. The main meat pieces are being dried in the sun. The earth around is soaked with blood. We are invited to join in the meal. A plateful of liver, probably the best part of the meat that has been cooked, is handed to me. The others - Shish included - eat up all the entrails with great relish. After the meal, the main hunks of meat are packed in a gunny bag to be taken back to the village and the camp disbanded.

We resume our walk. Further ahead, looking up into the Pabbar valley, Shish points out the Gunas pass - a flat top towards the right. Buran pass is hidden by a turn the valley takes to the left. By 1.45pm, we are at another meadow named Litham Thatch (3550m). This is our destination for the day.

We sit down in front of a shelter where we are joined by a couple of  shepherds. The shelter is made entirely of flat stones piled one on top of another without the use of any cementing material. We take out our packed lunch - boiled eggs and roti with egg bujiya, sharing it with the others.

First view of Gunas pass

I walk around and explore Litham and investigate the water source, an underground spring on the edge of a steep slope. The sheep dogs we first saw in Dayara first arrive, later followed by the sheep. We also have some visitors - shepherds who are just back from Sangla. They have just taken the first flock of sheep this season over the Buran pass to Kinnaur. The sheep tramping in line over the snow have opened up a route over the pass. According to them, the pass can be crossed starting from Litham in a day provided we start early. 

I am tempted to attempt the pass the next day. A major part of my luggage is still in Shish's place in Janglik. But there is a solution for that - the shepherd who has come from Sangla is heading for Janglik anyway. He is willing to go there and come back with my bag in time for us to leave next morning. He is also willing to guide us over the pass and carry my bag over, though he will not come all the way to Sangla.

View of Gunas pass from Litham

Unfortunately, negotiations with Shish on payment for the extra days required for crossing the pass fall through. He wants to be payed his daily guide fees not only till the trek ends in Sangla but also for the days he will be in transit from Sangla to Janglik via Rampur and Rohru. In addition, he wants his hotel stay and bus fare covered.

Soon it is time to prepare dinner. For the shepherds, it is going to be chapati and a curry made from the brain of the sheep that was slaughtered earlier. I am content with a tasteless khichidi that Shish cooks for me using one of the few vessels that the shepherds possess. I have to quickly eat it up as the same vessel will be used for making the brain curry. The head of the sheep is placed over the fire to remove the skin and hair. The skull is then smashed into small pieces and thrown into a broth.

As the evening progresses, there is a strong bitterly cold breeze blowing and I am chilled to the bone. The shepherds see me shivering and give me a blanket to cover myself. The breeze apparently starts up the same time every evening but thankfully subsides after a while. Otherwise I would be frozen stiff tonight.

The shelter at Litham

It is time to gather the sheep around the shelter. A new born kid - just 5 days old - has been carried by the shepherds and has been bleating for its mother. It cannot as yet walk and is roughly handled by the senior shepherd and left abandoned near the camp all day. Towards evening, it is used as a bait to get milk from its mother. A shepherd carries the kid towards the flock to draw its mothers attention and then heads back. The mother follows him, is promptly tied up and milked. It is a hard life for the kid!

The rotis are cooked on a fire inside the shelter. A fat lump of dough is patted down by hand and baked over the fire for the oldest dog, a 14 year old and wearing a jagged metal collar as protection against wild cats. 

I am informed that he is very fierce and readily takes on wild animals - he has been mauled once by a big cat. The other dogs are just given lumps of uncooked dough - they are fit and can digest it. The shepherds then set upon the brain curry, leaving the chewed up bones for the dogs.

Dinner over, I slip into my sleeping bag. The others - Shish and two shepherds - share a huge blanket. One of them is a old man - perhaps over 60 years. He has been doing the cooking. The other is a tall and handsome young man - Prem I will call him - who has been spending time with the sheep all evening. (Prem was actually his brothers name. I met him while walking from Tangnu to Janglik)

Long shot of Chandranahan waterfall from Litham

Prem, it tuns out has been with other trekkers before and has undergone some sort of training in trekking. We converse easily into the night while Shish keeps up a conversation in the local dialect with the older shepherd.

There are exactly 865 sheep in his flock, and  four shepherds are taking care of them. Two have gone back to Janglik for a rest, while Prem and his elder companion remain with the herd. Every few days, there is a change of hands and another batch of four shepherds will replace them. The sheep belong to various families in the village. About 40, if I remember right, belong to Shish kumar. The flock under their care consists of both sheep and goats. 

Looking up towards Chadranahan  from up closer

Sheep eat grass while goats chew on brambles. So they are taken to different spots for grazing. At night, the sheep are brought into a small circle near the campsite to sleep with the sheepdogs on watch. There are 4 sheepdogs with this group. I am assured that they will attack any intruder who tries to take away the sheep. The sheep are marked so that the owners in the village can identify them.

I learn that the sheep spend the summer in these high altitude pastures, moving from pasture to pasture every few days when the available fodder gets exhausted.. Villages have their own reserved pastures.The winter grazing grounds are in the foothills. So there is an yearly migration. Around Oct 15 to 20, they start on a trek to Paonta Sahib via Khara Patthar. The journey takes 30 to 35 days. A permit is needed for grazing in the forests of Nahan near Paonta Sahib. The permit costs 30-40 p/cattle and 70 p/sheep.

Half way up to the waterfall

9th June: Litham thatch (3550 m) - Chandranahan (3950 m) - Litham

After a breakfast of maggie, we start the trek towards Chandranahan at 6.30 am. My relations with Shish are frosty after yesterdays failed negotiations. 

It is a steep climb alongside a frozen stream. Our target is the head of a water fall visible from Litham thatch. We make our way up skirting the hard snow but are forced by the topography to cross the steep frozen surface several times. During one crossing, I slip and just manage to dig in my trekking pole into the snow to provide an anchor. It is 9 am when we reach the head of the waterfall, marked by prayer stones. We have climbed to about 3950 m.

Litham from the head of the fall

Beyond the waterfall, we reach a sort of level ground with high peaks on either side and at the far end. Chandranahan is supposed to be a system of seven lakes extending over a km, fed by an underground spring. I can imagine where the lakes could be located. But right now, all I can see is a frozen landscape. The stream leading from the lakes to the water fall is visible as flowing water only near the fall. Upstream it disappears under hard snow. 

Sheesh informs me that beyond this point, according to local custom, we cannot proceed wearing leather shoes. It is out of the question to walk on the ice without footwear. I am inclined to believe that Shish is making things up a bit. I am aware that local custom prohibits leather articles at Chandranahan, but it seems to me that we are still some distance

Chandranahan ?

from the lakes. Anyhow, I decide to humor Sheesh and return; inwardly I am fuming. By 10 am, we are back at the shelter. Sheesh tells me stories of the misfortunes that have befallen people who have violated the 'no leather' code at Chandranahan including being pelted by massive hailstones and meeting with various accidents. The elder shepherd at the camp agrees with Sheesh and adds his own stories.

Litham - evening view

Litham - Janglik

I take leave of the elder shepherd - Prem is away with the flock - and we start on the return journey. After a while, I hear loud hailing from a height over the trail and see Prem running down the mountain slope towards us slithering and sliding away but without reducing his speed. We bid goodbye to each other promising to meet in Janglik that night. Prem then runs back uphill with boundless energy to return to his flock. 

Dayara - another view

The return trek should have been easy, but turns out to be tortuous. The sole of one shoe of mine comes apart. I am carrying a shoe glue ... I stop by a pile of snow to clean the surfaces and apply the glue. The shoe holds for a while and then gives way again. After several such attempts, I finally give up and pack the sole in by backpack.

The morning climb to Chandranahan has tired me. The broken shoe does not help and my pace - though we are loosing height - is poor. We reach Janglik towards evening - 6 pm , 7 hrs into the trek. I am exhausted and stretch out on the boundary wall of Sheesh Kumar's house. He has work to attend to before he can get down to making our dinner. He has a couple of small gardens with vegetables adjoining his house and these need to be watered.

Janglik - another view

10th June: Janglik - Tangnu - Rohru - Rampur

I get up at 5 and go for a 'morning walk' with Sheesh. Only one or two houses in the village have toilets - the rest use a patch of forest beyond the village. I leave Janglik at 6 and reach the bus stop at Tangnu by 7.10 after a vigorous walk. By 10.15, I am at Rohru, have lunch at a dhaba and catch the 12.30 bus to Rampur. That evening, after taking up a room at the Rampur bus stand, I attend to the most pressing task on hand - getting my shoe resoled!

Himalayan Trek 11, June 2014