Taking the 5980 meter high mountain as witness, I talked to the goats

There are thousands of valleys in the Himalayas spread from North to East of India and my favorite valley is 'Solang'. In the last few years, I have probably gone to Solang Valley more than 20 times, maybe even more times. Solang Valley situated at 2450 meters is a very beautiful place for adventure lovers. Take a bus from Delhi and travel about 600 km by road to reach this beautiful place.

Collage created in adobe photoshop

Tourists reach Manali by bus which takes about 15 hours to reach. Now that Lane 4 Highway has been built, this time may be reduced by one or two hours. Solang Valley is 14 km from Manali, take a local bus from Manali which takes you to Solang Valley for around Rs 40. So this was the information on how to reach Solang Valley.

I came here to attend an event. There were a few days left for the event so I started roaming around. There is a place in Solang Valley named Bakkarthach from where one path leads towards Beas Kund and another path leads to a 5980 meter high mountain whose name is Hanuman Tibba. Of course I have not climbed this high mountain but I have visited all the other places many times.

Since it is only my second day in the valley, I decide not to go too far and just go to Bakkarthach. This walk will make my body feel acclimated to the altitude which I will need a lot in the coming days. To reach here, I walked from Solang Valley to Dhundhi Bridge which is 6 km. Then I left the foggy road and started walking up the mountain.

I had to walk about 6 km on foot and reached Bakkarthach. Camps for basic mountaineering courses are also organized here, but nowadays no courses are being run so the entire mountain is lying vacant. In summer, shepherds go far into the mountains with their animals so that their animals can get good grass to eat. Here too a shepherd was roaming with his sheep and goats.

I manage to take photos of a few goats...and after clicking a few photos the Camry's battery runs out, which I am not sad about because I was only going to come this far. Here I talk to the goats for a while, talk to the Hanuman Tibba visible behind and after saying hello to the distant mountains visible from here, I come back to Solang Valley where I have to stay for a few days.

Disclaimer: This post is originally written in Hindi and I have used Google Translator to tranlate the Hindi text in English. All the photos have been clicked by me from Canon 77D (70-200m) and edited in Lightroom/photoshop.