It was a pleasant morning. The camp fire was dying down slowly and the sun raising up the horizon. With a very comfy sleeping bag I enjoyed a warm night's sleep with my pullover's hood doing its part in keeping the cold away. After a quick refreshment, we trooped to an amazing view, near the camp, of the peak we set out to conquer. After a quick photo session there, we started packing out things and were set to leave the comforts of our camp by about 8 am.
After a small confusion on the trial to be taken we hit the right path for the steep climb down. I should mention here, that thoughts of reaching the peak was aborted and everyone were set to enjoy the return. Slowly in batches we climbed down the steep trial back to the cross-streams and by 11 30 am we were all down, except for two. The first thing everyone did after coming
down was to jump into the pools around
and take a long dip. The small cascades of water nearby were too inviting to skip. It was a wonderful refreshment after the demanding climb down.
Meanwhile, the more senior members of the trek, curbed their instincts to set up the cook pots for some soothing tea and tasty soupy noodles. Thanks to them, all the hungry souls who emerged out of the pools had a wonderful and filling lunch. After enjoying ourselves till about 1 30 pm near the cross-streams we began our retreat. The two missing members came down through another trial while we were about to leave. It was decided that while some (which turned out to be half) of the others will stay back give those two company, the others will proceed with the villager in the lead.
The old villager led the lead pack at a flat dead pace, that was well kept up by the group. With breaks twice every three hours and one long break to make sure our fellow group of trekkers caught up with us at a major crossing, we still made it to our base camp without any delays as dusk set in at about 7 pm. Then began the long wait for the group that followed us. With little or no communication about them until about 9 pm, we were sure they were lost.
Two of the group that already reached decided we will need to head back and find them. They wanted a third and I volunteered. And so began the rescue mission.
Trekking in the night is so much different from that in the day. The obvious trial that we followed a day ago in broad sunlight was not so seemingly obvious in the darkness of the night. We had one off the trial detour which was enough to tell us that we could not do this without more help. We called up the remaining guys at the base camp and told them to get some villagers for help.
Meanwhile, as suggested by Nagin (who was one of the other 2 rescuers) we started laying markers to mark our trial. Soon, we hit the right trial and were on our way. We reached a point on the trial where none of us could predict the right path. So we decided we'll wait for more help at a known location than get lost ourselves. We waited for about 15 minutes at the dirty stream crossing. Help, in the form of 4 energetic villagers, soon arrived. They led us at a sure pace through the forest to our friends in another half hour. Finally the entire team of 50+ trekkers reached the base camp safely by midnight and back to Chennai in the morning. All along in my mind, I thought the T-shirt I wore that day said it all: 'CHEER UP! The worst is yet to come!'. Thus ended the trek that I enjoyed and learnt a lot.
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