Discovering the beauty of Balbhadra Peak

Worldmappin has made December more interesting by launching #winterchallenge. Now I want to remain in the top 10 in the leaderboard, so I am taking time out from my busy schedule to write blogs. I also feel like laughing because these days I open the hive again and again and then see my position in the worldmappin leaderboard and think that I wish I could write a post every day this month so that I can finally finish at a good position in this challenge.

Collage created in collage mobile app

Today I am writing this post dedicating it to winter in which I summit Balbhadra Peak in the first week of December, that too alone. So let me tell you this story. It is Sunday and I wake up a little late and freshen up, because it is Sunday, I plan not to go anywhere, but as soon as I come out of the bathroom after taking a bath, I don't know what spirit possesses me and I wear shoes and leave at 10 in the morning.

I don't know where to go after leaving the house, and whenever I feel like it, I go to the mountain in front which is called Balbhadra. After crossing the road, I leave the residential area after which no house will come and neither will I hear the noise of any vehicles. From here onwards there will be only forest and sounds coming from the forest. I had no idea that I will do photography because after crossing the road, I thought that I will enjoy the forest and the peace here and will not take the mobile out of the pocket.

But as soon as I was walking, I was given a leaf whose half color was pink and half green, nature forced me to take out the mobile and do photography. I started climbing the mountain and now I saw many similar plants whose leaves are green and pink in color. There are leaves in this part of the forest which look like a net. I click photos of these too. Because winter has come in the Himalayas, so I have come wearing a jacket, so now while climbing the mountain I have started sweating.

I unzip my jacket and walk and let the sweat dry naturally. After about a kilometer, I reach a place from where the Dehradun valley is visible through the forest. I feel very good to see the concrete jungle through the window of nature. Seeing this view, I think about how far we have come. After spending some time here, I move ahead. Pink leaves are still falling on the way, spiders have established their empire among the leaves lying on the ground. I am walking carefully so that my saliva does not fall on any spider.

There are heart-shaped leaves on the way which are drying up due to winter and now flowers will bloom on them when summer arrives. At some places, a special type of fungus is also visible. On the way, in the middle of the forest, humans have cut a tree and kept it down, now the person who cuts this tree will take it home in the dark. Cutting trees without the permission of the forest department is a crime, but despite this, trees are being cut. There are some very old trees in the middle of the forest, looking at which I feel that the age of these trees must be 200 years for sure.

Mongooses also live here, who have made their burrows under the ground. Mongooses have completely cleared the ground at many places to make their colony and due to this there are holes in the ground. Due to these holes I have to walk carefully, if my foot gets stuck in them, I can get hurt. The vegetation of the forest is very rich, there are very beautiful plants here. Among these plants, there is a plant which has pods and their color is yellow and green. These plants are looking very beautiful and unique in the rays of the sun coming filtered from here and there. I get lost in their sweetness.

On moving ahead, I find a peacock feather lying on the road, which I happily pick up and when I turn it towards the sky, various colors shine in it. This is the king of beautiful feathers, the peacock, which I have seen once or twice in this forest. Talking about the wildlife here, deer, leopard, fox, peacock, wild cock, partridge, rabbit and hyena live. Well, there are many wild boars in this forest too.

And in the last paragraph of this post, when I reach the road to Balbhadra, I realize that I have come quite high up in the forest and the vegetation here has changed. Due to the increase in height, the wind has started blowing cold. Now I am breathing more and I have again tied the zipper of my jacket. I had to hike 3 km to reach here. From here, I will have to walk a few more km to reach Balbhadra and Chandrani temple. That's all for today. I will write about the rest of the journey in the next post.

Disclaimer: This post is originally written in Hindi and I have used Google Translator to translate the Hindi text in English. All the photos have been clicked by me from Poco f1 android smartphone and edited in deskstop software adobe lightroom. Thumbnail created in dekstop adobe photoshop.