Hampta Pass, Part2: Day1 Manali-Jobri-Cheeka

Day1: Manali-Jobri-Cheeka

The first day of the trek began with overcast skies. By the time we had wrapped up our breakfast it had already begun to drizzle.

The overcast Manali morning

PC: Gauri Dixit

We packed our sacks with only the trek essentials and left the rest in our hotel. The list of trek essentials vary from person to person, so I’ll just put up my list for reference:

• 1 full sleeve cotton tee + 2 dry fit half-sleeve tees
• 1 army fatigue pants + 1 light cotton trek trousers
• 1 thermal top
• 1 rain/wind jacket + 1 doon feather warm jacket
• 1 pair of trek shoes + 1 pair of sandals
• 2 pairs of light cotton socks + 3 pairs of thick cotton socks + 1 pair of woolen socks
• 1 pair of gloves + 1 monkey cap + 1 buff + 1 cotton scarf/napkin
• torch + penknife + 3mtr. cotton sling (rope/lace)
• band-aid + bandage + wet-wipes
• anti-fungal dusting powder
• water bottles 2+1 litre
• 4 electral packets
• 0.5kg dates
• 1 packet of orange candy
• 1 hand sanitizer bottle + 2 paper-soap sachet + 1 cold cream + 1 Vaseline + 1 toothpaste
• 1 rain-sheet
• 1 trek pole
• 4 small snap-link carabiners

Out of these, the only unused items were the hand sanitizer bottle, cold cream, Vaseline and 1 pair of cotton socks each. I gave away the cold cream after it started to leak.

The trek arrangements had been done by Mr. Polu Ram, a local guide. For some reason he could not join us for the trek, and so his brother Mr. Dinesh was to be our guide for the trek. They came to pick us up with two Sumos. We set off for Jobri after a brief round of instructions.

The road to Jobri starts from a diversion on the Manali-Naggar road and climbs steeply thereafter. It’s a challenging road to drive on – not well maintained with potholes, streams and inclines. The road ends at the Allain Barrage, i.e. Jobri. It takes about an hour to reach here from Manali.

The road to Jobri

PC: Arpit Shah

There was a steady drizzle when we reached at Jobri and we took refuge under a make-shift tarpaulin shack. It turned out that the horses – mules rather – were not yet loaded and we would have to wait. Waiting at Jobri in relative dryness under the sheet was better than waiting at Cheeka where we would be exposed to the elements without the tents. We had a quick lunch of siddus (a local dish, similar to a hand-sized steamed momo) with chutney and chai. Pritam meanwhile found out that the sole of his shoes was about to come off. Luckily the shack owner had a stock of Fevi-Kwik which we used to patch him up.

Waiting at Jobri

L-R: Mayank, Sandhya, Shakeel, me, Arpit

PC: Arpit Shah

After waiting for more than an hour we set off for Cheeka. The ascent to Cheeka was gradual . We started along the left bank of the Allain Nala. The trail left the stream at places to climb into the deodhar and pine forest and then again descended lightly to the stream. The entire trail to Cheeka is straight-forward without any technical sections. After about 60% of the distance, the trail crosses over to the other bank of the stream over a makeshift wooden bridge. The gushing stream below might seem to be unnerving to some while crossing the bridge. The mules, after starting about half-an-hour after us, passed us at this point. Hereafter, we followed the right-bank.

Crossing the nala

VC: Arpit Shah

It was about 3pm when we reached the already crowded Cheeka campsite. The camp-able area at Cheeka is pretty small and already before us two groups had pitched their tents. One of these groups was a group of twenty-nine sexagenarians who we had met during the train journey from Mumbai to Delhi. We pitched our tents on whatever suitable ground we could find and then had a nice hot meal of noodles.

Tenting up at Cheeka

PC: Devendra Sawant

The tent arrangement was:
1x 4-man tent for the guys: me, Pritam, Shakeel and Devendra
2x 3-man tents for the girls: Tejal, sony, Purvi, Shivani, Gauri and Sonal
2x 3-man + 1x 2-man tents for the 3 couples: Mayank+Sarita, Arpit+Sandhya, Charuta+Aditya (rotation policy)

Birds-eye view of the Cheeka camp-site

Ours were the tents closest to the nala

PC: Sandhya Bhatre

After freshening up, we set off for an exploration of the waterfall next to the campsite. That was followed by a game of Uno in the guys’ tent. We wrapped up the games by sundown – 7:45pm. Soup was served by 8pm, followed by a simple dinner with dessert.

Everyone signed off to their respective tents by about 9pm and soon everyone was in their sleeping bags and off to sleep. Almost asleep that is .... :p

- Kapil Pilankar