Ilaqa Pass Trekking Experience – Day 3

Woke up at 9 AM, got ready and did check out from the hotel. We decided to do our breakfast at Mcleodganj, so we hired a shared taxi and reached there in around 40 minutes. After reaching Mcleodganj, we started exploring the market and found one good restaurant and had our breakfast there. The food was good enough at that cost. Later we inquired about the route to Dharamkot and Triund and purchased required food for our trekking such as Juices, Bread, Chocolates, Jam, Water bottles, fruits, etc. and some essential items. Now it was the time when we had to start our trek from Mcleodganj (1750 metres) to Triund (2875 metres).

We started our trek from Mcleodganj at 3 PM with our much heavy backpacks (mine was the heaviest). After 20 minutes of trekking, we were like “no, we can’t do this with these bags”. Somehow, we reached Dharamkot in around 30 minutes. We took a short rest, drank some energy drinks and then resumed our journey with a positive attitude. After 20 minutes, we again stopped due to pain in our shoulders. While we were resting, one couple in a car came and asked for the route to Galu Devi Temple. We gave the directions in a hope of getting lift. And his goodness was that he asked to drop us at Galu Devi Temple and we just ran into the car and enjoyed our journey to Galu Devi Temple, but this happiness was just till Galu Devi Temple. The route till Galu Devi Temple was tiring, but after Galu Devi it was slightly uphill. Before resuming our trek, we adjusted the stuff in our bags and made all equal in weight.

We continued our trek till 7 PM and took many short and long breaks in between the trek. Now we were left with the last stretch to reach Triund hill, which is called “22 Curves” or some call it “The tiring 22 curves” because this was the toughest part of the trek to Triund. The route was much steeper than the previous route, but this was not the problem for us. The main problem was the time. It was 7:30 PM in our watch and the sun was setting down quickly. The good thing is that on mountains complete darkness occurs at 8 PM. So by somehow we climbed that last part. The last 15 minutes trek of the day we did it in complete darkness with the help of mobile flashlights. Only we know that how we did this climb.

After this little scary trek, we got amazed when we reached at Triund. The scene at triund was like a fair. There were around 50 tents and everyone was enjoying with their fullest. We were the last group who reached the camp site on that day. We quickly pitched our tent and ordered maggi from a shop/hut. After having our dinner, we slept in our tent. The weather was chilling in the night as we had to wear our sweaters to make our sleep comfortable. During mid-night, I was scared of collapsing the tent due to strong winds. Our tent was alpine one and these tents are less stable than dome tents. At last, we managed to sleep.