A refreshing day in mountains

29 September 2023, Waking up every morning, doing the same things every day that I have been doing for the last one week. To tell you the truth, I am bored of doing the same thing. Wake up every morning, freshen up, have breakfast and go out into the mountains to mark the trails there. Every year I come this month, I have my team with me and together we mark all the trails. Although we do this for a trail race whose distance is 100 km, but the biggest benefit of this marking is for the trekkers.

There are many landslides here during the rainy season, hence the marked trails are very successful in taking anyone to a safe place. At Bhrigu Lake and Beas Kund, the fog becomes so thick that it becomes almost difficult to see anything, at that time these marks help everyone in saving their lives. I have marked about 450 km of trails so far in the last few years.

The 100 km long race will start on September 30 and end on October 1 evening. Only 3 trails of this route are left after being marked. Of these three, I marked one this morning whose distance was 12 km. In the evening the trail from Barua village to Vasistha temple was marked. Now if we mark the remaining one tomorrow morning, the entire 100 km route will be ready for the runners. In the morning Ravi and I leave for Dhundhi which is 6 km from Solang valley, the weather was clear and the sun was bright so we marked this segment quickly.

We left in the evening after sunset, the only reason for leaving after sunset is that there would be no people on the trails. Empty trails are quickly marked. Starting from Solang Valley, we both reach Barua village, till here we are installing reflectors along with the trail, reflectors are being installed because the runner will be here at night and when he hits the light from the headlamp, the trail will start glowing. This distance is about 6 km which we take 2 hours to cover.

From Barua village we go to Gaushal from where we cross a wooden bridge and join the Manali-Leh highway. From here we start walking along the wall of Sase. If we continue on this trail, we reach Jogini Waterfall, but we do not want to go to Jogini Waterfall, so we take the right. The path on the right goes to Vasistha temple through apple orchards. This temple is at an altitude of 2800 meters and this temple is said to be very ancient. We stop here for a while to breathe and drink water. By now it is 9 pm.

From Vashishtha we come on foot to the road from where our companion picks us up in a woolen car as usual. After reaching the hotel, we take a bath, wear warm clothes and go for dinner. After dinner, I come to the room and get into the quilt. I look at my mobile for a while and post it on Hive before coming.

Today we did 20 km of route marking. There is an elevation gain of 1200 meters in this 20 km. The weather was clear so it was a lot of fun. Now tomorrow only one segment has to be marked which connects Palchani to Kothi village. We will wake up early tomorrow and mark it, after which we will get busy with race bib distribution. 220 runners will come tomorrow, all will carry bibs and will run the race on 30th September. It will be fun to see them running.