My experience with Dayara Bugyal and Indiahikes

B Vijayakumar

Dayara Bugyal Trek

Dec 19 to Dec 24, 2021

"Where are you? Here
What time is it? Now
What are you? This moment."

Above is a quote from a famous inspirational book "Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives". Also available as movie named "Peaceful warrior".

Now, is it really a quote or just funny answers to silly questions? The author explains that focusing on current moment without thinking about past / future or location or surroundings is the way to attain self-realization and inner peace. With this you can achieve any goals in life.

While we were walking through the snow-covered meadows of dayara-bugyal-trek, I asked my trek leader Swarada when did it last snow here? She questioned back to me - what is the day today? I told its today (just for fun). She agreed and told that while we are here, we will not know the days. It made me think, yes, we do not know the day/ date. Later while descending also she told we are carefully stepping down to avoid slippage without thinking anything else. We do not think about past or future but just the next step we are about to take. I think this is one sort of mediation.

I have done a few marathon / treks before. They have given immense pleasure and were satisfying every time before. But whenever someone asks me why I do it, I have not been successful in giving a convincing answer. My recent trek to Dayara Bugyal in Uthrakanth made me realize so many things. Thanks to IndiaHikes, trek leader and other fellow trekkers.

I chose IndiaHikes to be my trekking organization and then chose the dates and then I was ok to take any available snow treks. So, I got Dayara Bugyal. When I registered for the trek, my only expectation was to walk through vast meadows filled with snow. But after trek I believe I have learnt a lot. The talk by our trek leader Swarada about history of IndiaHikes and why IndiaHikes wants people to trek itself gave me answers for why I do treks.

As per the plan, we reached Raithal village around 4pm in a cab from Dehradun. Altitude - 7096 ft. Our trek leader Swarada from IndiaHikes has already sent a video welcome message during our travel. Also, our experience coordinator Prathima had given lot of information on the trek from the day we registered so that we can be prepared for the trek. At Raithal we stayed in the new place setup by IndiaHikes for different treks starting from Raithal. The view from this place itself was great with Gangotri range seen on one side and the evening view was mesmerizing with alpine glow over the peaks. We got to see the glowing peaks during all the five days of our trek. Dayara Bugyal is one of the treks with most amazing view of peaks during almost all the time of trek.

Next day, we started walking around 9am after breakfast. It was a long walk before we reached GUI campsite at a height of 9630 ft. The walk was through the stone trails created by local villagers. We went past goat village with local people and then after some time we went through few stretches filled with snow. But the vast expanse of snow waited for our next days of trek:-)

During our walk, we passed by a coin tree which had lot of coins placed through the bark of the tree. It is a belief that the wish we make with coin inserted will be granted. I too used the coin tree :-)

 Evening was fun in the camp site, and we did an expedition trek followed by stunning view of alpine glow. Our trek leader organized some fun game before dinner and trekkers health check was done before we ended our day in the tents.

The next day trek was a short one but filled with amazing views. We spent a lot of time in GUI lake on the way which was fully frozen. We were able to do ice skating with trekking shoes on and it was such a fun to have ice skating race over there.

We also went past a small frozen water falls which was an amazing view. We reached Chilapada camp site for lunch. Altitude - 10400 ft.

It is said that “Antartica has the highest average IQ of any continent”. It’s because only scientists and researchers travel there 😊. Similarly, I believe for any Himalayan trek, we can expect high IQ people on board (including me haha). We can feel it by interacting with the trekking group. We got an amazing trekking group from different parts of the country. Some of them were with lot of experience on trekking. It was great to have interacted with them and learn a lot from them. Also, we got a kid in our group who did an amazing trek.

Next day was the summit day for which we started around 6am after breakfast. It was a tiresome walk for some time but as we reached the open meadows filled with snow the view was amazing with sun light joining to treat us. In no time we were surrounded by long long views of snow on all sides.

The final summit climb was steep but the view from top was so mesmerizing. Altitude - 11830 ft. The author of peaceful warrior says that "The journey is what brings us happiness, not the destination." But here both journey and destination were great.

While returning from the peak, we did slide on the snow at some places. It was very fun. After some time, we entered a thick forest area to descend instead of using the stone trails. It was so steep, and we had to focus on each step to avoid slipping. We had a night stay in Nayata campsite (Altitude - 9066 ft.) and continued the decent the following day. Reached Raithal around 2pm - Altitude - 7096 ft. The place was not as cold as we felt during the start of trek but that's only our feeling :-)

The IndiaHikes team have arranged couple of activities during trek like meditation, a minute of silence in the forest, hugging a tree, writing a letter of thanks to anyone etc. which all gave us a happy feeling.