Post Midsem Times: Auli - Rishikesh - An Unexpected Journey

Day 3
We woke up in our hotel at Joshimath. Piyush D the hobbit who had been handed the responsible for destroying the ring was sick and weak. We got lots of Real juice and ate some alloo paratha at the local stalls. From local sources and the low room rent we got to know that the number of tourists has fallen drastically due to the Uttarakhand floods last year. This had caused much reduction in fares and rents. The snow capped peaks could be seen from Joshimath in the cheerful morning. Piyush D and Arpan bravely took the 'helm' of the bikes and guided the fellowship towards Auli about 16 kms from there. The road to Auli was good and fenced at most of the places. Also it was mostly inhabited and the climate was cool, keeping us fresh and spirited for new adventures. Actually perhaps only I felt spirited, the other members of the fellowship - Arpan J whose wrist has become sore due to constant pressure during bike handling and Piyush D was sickened. Perhaps the ring was taking its toll in him.

We reached Auli resort at mayb 10AM. First we roamed around the army stations where we took pictures of cows and fields and anything neat and clean. Then near the resort we hired a guide similar to Golum to lead us for trekking where we had secretly intended to destroy the ring in the fire of doom. The Golum like guide brought a twist in our story and instead of snatching the powerful ring, ripped us instead charging us 700. Anyways we left our bikes behind and undertook our journey towards the snow capped mountains, panting and gasping for breath as we climbed. The lower region were overgrown with grass, but it gets covered with snow during winters and skiing competitions were organised there. The South Asian Winter Games 2011 were conducted at Auli. We saw the world's highest artificial lake on our way. We saw sheep, mules, tourists riding the mules and pastures. The landscape varied a lot - walking on the gentle and cheerful green pastures as in Shire being grazed by tender sheep huddled and contrasted by cold rugged ice capped mountains in the distance, then we reached the woods with tall straight trees of the cold country with the grounds inundated with fallen brown leaves and twigs interrupted by infrequent patches of ice breaking the monotonicity. We passed some tents where people had camped and small streams trickling down from some hidden melted ice. We dragged on and stopped to have some lembas bread like aaloo paratha we had brought along with us.

We carried on our climb over grasslands marked by patches of ice and reached the top region where mules were grazing and long stretches of ice covered ground magnified the beauty of the scene. Piyush D tired and barely walking reached a spot where locals had gathered around a fire to keep themselves warm. And there was the ring dropped and destroyed in the fire of doom. We walked up and down the hillocks, slipping occasionally on the melted snow and clicked lots of pictures. We saw people going further ahead for long duration camps and treks. Then we trotted back along with the Golum like trek guide. The retreat was lot easier due to downhill slope. Besides the ring no longer troubled our hobbit hearts and lightened us. We waited for the eagles but they did not show up.

We reached back to our hotel at Joshimath, packed our luggages, had a light lunch and started back at about 2 30 PM. In between it started raining and we had to stop about 3 times at small shelters to avoid slipping and poor visibilty. We reached Pipalkoti in the late evening and decided we could not go any further that day. We took a decent room, quite cheap, and rested. We had hot tea and round cream rolls like stuff which did not had any cream and succeeded in avoiding speeding swirling vehicles trying to play road rash with us. We slept peacefully after a very fruitful day.