A Challenging Trek with Stunning Views: The 'Death Climb

Today is my second attempt at writing regularly on Hive. Yesterday I wrote about how I did a 30 km hike in which I walked from Solang Valley to Kothi village and then Palchan village from where I visited the 4000-year-old Hindu temple Vasishtha and ended my walk back to Solang Valley. Today, I and one of my companions will go from Vasishtha temple to Mori Dug to mark the route. These markings are being done for a trail race held annually in Solang.

After having breakfast by 7 am, I set out to start another day. Today, I and my companion will go from Solang village to Barua from where we will cross the bridge ahead of Goshal village and walk on the trail between the apple orchards to reach Vasishtha temple and from here we will climb the hill to Mori Dug. Runners coming for the 'Solang skyultra' race call the trail from Vasishtha temple to Mori Dug as 'Death Climb'.

The ‘Death Climb’ segment has an elevation gain of 969 meters in just 2.61 km. The height of Vasishtha temple in this segment is 2050 meters and the end point of this segment comes at 2912 meters. With a 32.7% gradient, this is a wall on which the runners have to go and today we have to mark this route so that the runners do not lose their way. After leaving the hotel, our target is to reach Vasishtha temple which is 8 km away.

Starting at 7 am, we cross Barua, Goshal and Vasishtha temple at 10 am and start climbing the ‘death climb’. It took us 3 hours to cover this 8 km distance, which is absolutely the right time as per the planned time. As soon as we climb up from the temple, after about 50 meters, people, noise and houses end. Here above are the apple orchards of the villagers where apples are being plucked these days. While walking, we can smell the fragrance of apples all around.

After about 500 meters, we can see the wonderful view of the valley. The hilly villages situated on both sides of the Beas river are shining like stars in the daylight. The snow-capped mountains above the origin of the river, named Beas Kund, are making their presence felt in the valley. Hanuman Tibba (5980 meters), Friendship Peak (5350 meters), Shikar Bah (6200 meters), Muker Bah (6070 meters) and Mount Patalsu, the crown of Solang village, are looking at the Dev Tibba visible in the distance.

By now we have entered the forest and the sun has reached above our heads. The good thing is that we are not sweating due to being in the forest. We have walked 9.5 kms so far and the death climb is yet to end. The forest is very dense due to the deodar, pine and ban trees, so the sunlight is not able to touch the forest floor and wherever it gets a chance, it is touching the lips of the earth, showing its power.

Before the death climb ends, we meet 2 dogs, who we think must have come to the forest with some traveler from Vashishtha village and then decided to go back home. We talk to the dogs, but they do not reply. When we start walking, both the dogs follow us. Now I am not able to understand how far these two will go with us because we are going to cover a very long distance.

Well, in the next 4 hours, we reach the top of the death climb and take rest, take a deep breath and say together that “Finally this game of death is over”. Today we hiked 10.22 km, in which there was an elevation gain of 981 meters and the time taken was 7 hours. The journey further from this post will be presented to you in the next post, till then stay healthy and keep smiling.

Disclaimer: This post is originally written in Hindi and I have used Google Translator to translate the Hindi text in English. All the photos have been clicked by me from POCO F1 android smartphone and edited in deskstop software adobe lightroom. Thumbnail created adobe photoshop.