Over the last 1 year of trekking, many people I have met have asked me a question. 'Which trek did you like the best?' I have always been unable to answer this question because genuinely, I have not liked any one more than the other. After Bada Bhangal though, I can answer the question. It was the best trek hands down. Over the next 3-4 posts, I will narrate the Bada Bhangal experience. It starts below.
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It was in the mid eighties. I was a toddler, perhaps 4 or 5. My brother was an infant. We lived in Bir and dad worked for the State Forest Department. My father was packing up to leave. I, curious as ever, asked my mother 'Mamma, where is Papa going?' 'Bada Bhangal' was the reply. 'Where is Bada Bhangal?' For a moment, mom was at a loss to explain. She had also perhaps only heard of the place or maybe she had no words to explain to me where it was. Dad came to her rescue. 'Its beyond Billing.' To a 4 year old kid, who lives in a village and takes a bus to school 14 km away everyday, is occasionally scooted to granddad's place 16 km away and has once been to Billing, the world pretty much ended at Billing. I don't remember my reaction but I can imagine it being wide eyed wonder. Did the world really extend beyond Billing? Beyond that ridge where we had been once to see colourful hang-gliders? Was it possible to go 'beyond' there? Didn't the world end there with a sharp drop from the ridge? Was the jungle not infested with wild cats?
Those are my first memories of Bada Bhangal. Over the next 3-4 years, dad often went to Bada Bhangal. It was so frequent that the only answer I remember to 'Where is Papa going?' was Bada Bhangal. He says he went there 7 times. My memories seem to be more like 70. My dad was never a man who would share his adventures with his sons. Still, obstinate and talkative that we were, we managed to get some details from him. Back then, I remember him telling us they camped in tents, carried their own rations and that it took them almost a month to go and come back (that ofcourse included work he went for). There was also the time (and I remember it vividly) when there was a long and loud argument between my parents because dad, according to sources, had taken risks in walking along a 15 inch wide path, with the Ravi gorge on one side and a mountain face on another. When his companions refused to accompany, he went back to them, goaded them and again went ahead to demonstrate how easy it was. So, Bada Bhangal, the place where my father always seemed to be, the place which was literally out of this world for us, the place which caused tensions at home stuck in my mind like wood sticks to fevicol.
It was partly a dream, partly a primitive urge to see what really Bada Bhangal is. When I left my job last year, the first trek I tried was Bada Bhangal. I was new to trekking, had not much clue about the mountains. So, my dad and the man who went me on that trek, together managed to con me into believing that the trek is 'closed', whatever that meant. I only went upto Plachek and went to Bir from there. All of last year and till 22nd July this year, I dreamt of Bada Bhangal. I created visual images of what it would look like. They said its a flat piece of land in the Ravi basin. If you have seen the Ravi near Chamba, you will know it takes a lot of imagination to visualize a flat basin for the Ravi, more so when it is upstream from Chamba. I still imagined! I also imagined Thamsar Pass, which leads to Bada Bhangal and Kaliheni Pass, which leads from Bada Bhangal to Manali. Imagined them full of snow, deep, old glaciers with crevasses in them.
22nd July this year, I finally started for Bada Bhangal. It was already late. I had planned on 16th but it came to 22nd and when it did, it was pouring. The bus journey from Palampur to Bada Gran was an eternity, had me changing 4 buses. Then, when we reached Bada Gran at long last, we had our first setback. The rain wouldn't let us walk an inch, leave aside walking all the way to Plachek. So, the day started at trekking from Bada Gran bus stop and ended at the Bada Gran school yard. The walking was postpone to the tomorrow, which I hoped would come. The last thing I wanted was to have to cancel the trek because the monsoons so decreed.
The schoolyard all muddy with the trees washed clean at Bada Gran after the epic downpour.
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