Goecha La: Fourth Day - Dzongri to Thansing

Today is a very bright, sunny day and the snow on the ground sparkles off the rays and dazzles my eyes. And I couldn’t have felt happier. The sun makes us all joyous. It’s a colourful contrast of colours. The yak men in their yellow gumboots. The shrubs green, partially or completely coated with snow. Snow on the ground. Bright coloured jackets of the trekkers. The water from the creek flows merrily. The snow has started to thaw.

I have ginger tea in the morning and some roti and alu subzi for breakfast.The tents are being wound up. Everyone is preparing for a long walk over the hill tops to go to Thansing. Dzongri is a valley that is surrounded by mountain ridges along all its sides, which means from Dzongri itself, you won’t get a proper view of what lies beyond the mountains. One of the ridges leads towards Dzongri La, where we went yesterday. But today we will climb over a separate ridge.

The ascent is nothing spectacular. But, once I reach the top of the mountain, the sight is jaw dropping.At my rear is the Dzongri valley and further behind are blue hills, topped with snow. But it is what lies ahead that is of staggering beauty. A vast meadow of green and yellow shrubs, with mules grazing on it, extends till as far as the eyes can see. And it ends in black, rocky, endless spires and peaks that seem to rise from the bottom the ocean and pierce into the sky. The hooded face of Mt Jopuno lies in the center. Towards its left lies Thin Chen Khang and even more left lies the sweeping,broad face of Mt Pandim, our companion for the next 3 days. Skies so blue and clouds so thick and the sun so dazzling and the peaks magnanimous. A lone trekker stands at the edge of the meadow looking at the towering mountains, which makes us feel how small man is compared to the rest of the world. The peaks, cages of rock and ice, bask in the bright sunrays. I sip a drop from my water bottle and rest on the trekking pole, overlooking this powerful landscape.

Today is a gift. The story of incessant snow fall, overcast skies feels like a thing of the past. And it was this feeling of being denied that – NOW appears to be the moment. Three days…..For three days, we walked in pain, slept on a cold floor, woke up with a throbbing headache ..and just when things looked down, there comes a moment like this, which sweeps everything away. Only that it came after a long time.

Yet, I strongly feel that you can never, ever take out the journey from the destination. This is a much valued moment for me, and even though none of the photos that I clicked are a part of this travelogue(I lost most of them due to a hard disk crash as mentioned above), but it was a defining moment of the trek.

Beyond the Dzongri meadows, the snow has made the path very muddy. The entire day involves walking along rhododendron trees, which supposedly flower during May. And views of Pandim, that resembles the cone of an ice cream. There is Black Kabru, a 5500 m peak that rises sharply into the sky. It sees very little precipitation. The “black” comes from the colour of the rock.

The descent is steep and fast as we make way for the yaks and horses that are returning back from Goecha La. At Kokchurang, we cross a wooden bridge and continue to climb amidst rocks and snow and coniferous trees. But it is afternoon now and the clouds have started to rush in. The sea of rocks and boulders doesn’t end and the ascent again makes you realize the difficulty. Its slow, but we are not in a hurry. And finally, it is afternoon when I spot a trekkers hut, with a massive valley beyond it, in the foothills of Pandim. We have reached Thansing finally. In the evening there is slight precipitation, early dinner and then off to sleep.At the tent I realize that it was the best walk of my life and nature has been gracious!