The Sar Pass Trek 2011: Day 7

June 2nd: Ratapani - Nagaru

L-R: Rohitya, Me, Diggu bhai, Indrajeet bhai.

The distance to the Nagaru camp from Ratapani isn't much. So we could afford to start late. It had rained (snowed at higher altitudes) heavily the previous night and as a result, the night was super cold. We came to know later on that this was the reason why there was much more snow on the surrounding mountains as compared to the previous evening. After soaking in the sun for a bit, we finally started off around 10.30 AM. After a while, we reached a point where I could touch snow for the first time. Ever! Made snowballs and threw at people :P. Continued on to the lunch point (a terribly placed one as we later found out) and reached there by 1. A few of us decided not to wait here and continued on ahead. The climb to Nagaru was about an hour away and this was one of the most fun stretches of the whole trek. Climbing in ice needed some getting used to and I quickly rediscovered kicking-in steps. It (kicking-in steps) really takes a toll on you! The climb from the lunch point to the camp was a brilliant experience! We finally reached the camp around 1.45 PM and the camp was virtually invisible thanks to all the clouds.

The first batch of people who arrived at Nagaru.

The Nagaru camp.

The camp site was all slushy because the sun had come out and the snow started melting. The sun kept playing hide and seek with us. When there's sunshine, it's a brilliant place to be in and when there isn't, it's just dead cold especially with so much wind. The tent that we got here was our worst tent here during the whole trip. Too much slush all over. The camp site location is brilliant though. Spectacular 360 degree views. Would have been 100x better if it was warm. We had to sleep early so that we could wake up at 2.30 AM to get ready to start by 4 AM. The reason we were supposed to start early was that once the sun came out in the morning, snow would melt and walking in the melting snow would be painful.