Friday, August 15, 2008

Chandertal: the daunting lake...

Chandertal or the mystical Moon Lake is a beautiful lake situated at a high altitude of 4250 metres. It is surrounding by snow covered mountains and glaciers. The reason why i call it daunting it because the way to reach it is one of the most difficult routes i have encountered in my life. there is no road as such and the broken track is also prone ot landslides and water streams. so here we were standing at the cut for Chandertal, deciding to give it a try inspite of the way being closed.
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the blocked road..
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as you can see above the road was bad.. but after a few minutes we came across this..
water flowing due to ice melting on higher mountains..
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and washing the road away..
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the flow of water was fast but we were obstinate..
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the victorious..
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then rocks blocking the way..
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but the view made up for the efforts..
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better tracks..
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best views..
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and suddenly there was a big gap in the road. the only way to cross it was by taking one tire at a time over the stones filling up the gap. ok for a bike but imagine if we were in a car..
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mountain tracks gave way to plains..
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then the rocks again..
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after over an hour, the first signs of life..
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and finally i reached it.. the Chandertal Wildlife Sanctuary..
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and here my bike got stuck in the mud. imagine pulling your bike out of the mud all alone at a height of 14000feet. believe me it was one tiring experience. after each pull i was gasping for breath. it took me half an hour to move the bike from the track it was stuck in to the track next to it..
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but i found all effort fruitful when i saw this..
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then someone thought that it would be a good idea to take his bike to the edge of the lake.. and who else could it be but apne sandy bhaiya..
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with us oxygen deprived souls helping he managed to take his bike to the lake. in the process we were wet till our knees and tired. but one look at the lake and you forget everything..
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resting the tired body.. :)
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then sandy and me took a walk around the lake..
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clicked from different angles..
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the great one : sandy..
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im in heaven..
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tourist walla pose..
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dudes walla pose..
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now the bike had to be taken back uphill.. so we oxygen deprived souls got back to work. first we were pushing..
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the vivek decided to ride. see the incline..
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dam laga ke hoisha..
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and we finally managed to get the bike back on top of the hill. after a snack of some biscuits and lotsa water, we started for Batal. the ride back was non stop as the sun was starting to set and i can not imagine how i would have negotiated that way at night..

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