Day 2 - A Stone's Throw

Six, seven, eight. That is the rhythm with which the day begins. At six o'clock, the kitchen staff places a steaming kettle of black tea with lots of sugar on a stone in the camp. The first tired figures crawl out of their tents, clutching their cups tightly to get their bodies going again with a hot sip of tea. 

Breakfast follows at seven o'clock in the communal tent. By then, all backpacks should be stowed and the tents should be empty. At eight o'clock the day's stage begins. This morning the guides will explain how to take down the tents. From now on we will do this every morning ourselves. Martin and I find this easy, after all, on our hikes we are usually responsible not only for dismantling, but also for setting up the tent. 

Out of curiosity, I help dismantle the bio-toilets. For these, a knee-deep hole was dug in the ground and a narrow tent placed over it. After doing one's business in the hole, one sprinkles wood shavings over it. The latter is also responsible for the smell in the toilets. There is no disgusting smell in these places, rather a pleasant breeze of fresh wood and mountain air. To dismantle the hole is simply filled with the removed earth. The wood shavings ensure that the moisture is removed and the biodegradation process can begin. Everyone has to take paper with them, so the biggest difficulty at this point is to calculate how much you will need for a week. 

The tents, wood shavings, pots, food, sleeping mats, others' sleeping bags, etc are transported from camp to camp for us by 12 Nepalese porters. They tie the individual items tightly together and then attach a carrying strap to the package. They put it around their forehead and stabilize it with their hands on both sides. The weight varies between 45 kg and 75 kg, which they carry light-footed and sometimes in flip-flops up the mountain.

To get a feel for it, I tie one of the packages around my forehead and manage to stand up with the help of the hiking group. I can walk a few steps, then I have to put the weight back on the ground and the carrier takes over. Trying it out gave me a better feeling for the work of the porters and increased my respect for their achievements. 

After this experience, we also shoulder our backpacks again and march off. 200 meters of altitude on 5km path, nothing to be afraid of. Meanwhile, the sun laughs again and pushes away the cold of the night. We are in an area where there are supposed to be blue sheep, but they do not show up. Probably they can be seen in spring, when they have to get the first green sprouts on the lower plains. 

The path continues to meander gently up the flank of the mountain and we enjoy the constant view of the rushing river. For the first time, the three peaks of Bhagirathi, rather unimaginatively called 1, 2 and 3 or the Bhagirathi Sisters, now become visible.

From Indiahikes all hikers of our group got a small bag for the belly, in which we can collect garbage at the wayside. And although it is a national park, it seems to us like a garbage dump in beautiful surroundings. The most annoying garbage are hundreds of small candy foils and caraway-anise mixtures that are gladly chewed for digestion. Next to them we find kilos of tetrapacks, bottles, foils, rubber, flip-flops and other garbage.

Especially this stage seems dirty to us and Martin and I practice lunges, make with our 10kg heavy backpack one lunge after the next to collect the garbage. A few others of the group are just as eagerly at work and even if it certainly does not bring much, because the next again carelessly throw away their garbage, it creates a certain attention in the group and with other hikers who observe us. 

At the end of the whole hike we will have collected and sorted together more than 15kg of garbage, which hopefully will be properly receycled in Dehradun.

We pass places with increased probability of falling rocks and put on our helmets. And indeed we have to pause at one point. A chamois, or perhaps even a blue sheep, has kicked loose debris that is now falling downhill and dragging more loose stones with it.

After calm has returned, we can continue walking and shortly thereafter reach our next camp. This one is much bigger than the last one. There are even a few small houses in which overnight accommodations are offered, a small temple and a house in which yoga and meditation are offered. There is also a large volleyball field around which we camp. In the course of the afternoon, more groups of tents are added and so it is soon almost as full with porters and cooks as in the Mount Everest Basecamp.

We have a hot lunch before Martin and I explore the area. It is closing in again, quickly the clouds creep upstream to our camp, but we don't want to spend the afternoon just sitting freezing in the tent. So we decide to walk the old path to the Gaumukh glacier up to the part where the path became impassable by a landslide and we are forced to turn back again. This little walk was again almost 6 km long and impressed by the silence and the mystical atmosphere of the moving clouds and wisps of fog.

When we get back to the camp there is a hot volleyball game going on. Our porters are playing against a group of army men. There is loud shouting and cheering and the players are all extremely good. Volleyball at 3800m doesn't happen every day for us either. For comparison, the Zugspitze, the highest mountain in Germany, is 2962m above sea level. 

In the meantime we are really cold again and unfortunately we missed the tea. We retire to our tent until we should arrive for dinner back in the communal tent. There our body scores are checked again. A few people have little appetite and headache, but Martin and I are fine, thanks to Diamox.

The dinner tastes again very delicious and after the sweet dessert our faces are reddened, the spirits are back. We enjoy the view of the starry sky and the Milky Way for a while. No city, no light clouds our view. With these impressions we crawl back into our cozy sleeping bags. The Diamox drives us out one more time, but we sleep extremely well again.

You missed the story of our first day on the trek? Then quick, read it here.

And these stories about the Ganga river have been shared by our hiking mates and we would like to share it with you!