Hi Everyone,
Today’s blog is gonna be a long one with a lot of adventure and beautiful views. I visited Dashaur Lake a few days back with my brother and our experience was phenomenal.
The trek starts from Marhi, near Rohtang Pass at the height of about 3400m from sea level. We took our car till Marhi early morning from Manali.
These pictures are taken from inside the car. It was a quick 45 min morning drive during sunrise. Everything around felt so fresh and tranquil at that time.
We started seeing snow after crossing Gulaba, a village about 25 minutes away from Manali. We were so excited to start our trek. None of us had done this trek previously and all we had was an offline save of the location in google maps, that too in the middle of the snow with no trails to find.
We started our trek from this beautiful temple. There was snow all around and we couldn’t see any human footprints at all. That clearly meant that we were the first people to go there after the recent spell of snow.
We started to look around to see the terrain. We tried to follow a straight line approach towards our destination with the help of google maps and got to know that we needed to go straight north.
The sun was shining brightly that day and there was no chance of whiteouts. That was a plus point for the navigation towards the lake.
The trail was a lot difficult then expected. It was very steep, full of snow and slippery.
As we gained elevation, the views started getting more beautiful and the trail started getting more difficult. We needed to get to an altitude of 4300m from sea level to get to the lake.
As we elevated up the mountain, the snow was increasing. We faced a lot of difficulties while crossing this trail with stones and snow. The stones were easily slipping when we stepped on them. We got injured a couple times but then took special care.
We also felt breathlessness as we moved up. I guess by this time we were already above 4000m from the sea level. We took a couple rests on the way before continuing.
As we moved further, we were approaching another rocky part that we needed to cross.
In the photograph below you can see the loose rocks that we crossed. It was quite an experience crossing this patch. I was both worried and amazed while crossing.
I couldn’t take any more pictures while crossing the most dangerous part shown in the below photo. But I can tell you through words that it was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.
After crossing the rocks, I witnessed something very strange. I noticed the waves on the snow. It was the first time I saw such snow. Then I realised that it must’ve been due to the high speed winds at blows up there at the evening time.
You can apparently guess how fast and cold the wind must’ve been there during the evening and night time. A person could easily freeze to death at such harsh conditions.
Now we needed to cross another rockey patch but this time it was full of ice so we needed to be extra careful while crossing.
I took out some pieces and ate them. Eating them felt so fresh and tranquil. It felt time I was eating the best ice cream in the world.
I also found one of the piece looking like Eiffel Tower of Paris. Tell me in comments if you also feel so. 😂
We crossed that rocky patch with a lot of care and attention. This time I tried to take some photographs too.
Now we reached the top of the mountain after a lot of efforts. Now we could see some really high Himalayan mountains up close.
We had a little photography session on the top and also looked for our trail ahead towards the lake on google maps. It showed that we had completed about 2/3 of the path. That’s us in the below photos. The one in the red jacket is me.
After our photography session, we started hiking towards lake. There was around 2.5-3 ft snow there at that time. It was a very fresh spell of snow so we were getting down on the snow easily and that made our hike even more difficult.
We finally spotted the lake from here. In the photo below, you can also try to spot the little lake in between the mountains. It was a really uplifting sight. The very sight of the lake filled our hearts with confidence and excitement and we got reenergised again.
I again witnessed that wavey snow and walked over it. Here the snow was about 3 ft deep and we had a tough time crossing this last patch towards the lake.
In the below photographs, you can see my brother getting half buried in the snow.
That was it. After a tough hike through the snow, we finally saw the lake. It was completely frozen. The sight of the lake made me forget about our difficult hike and tiredness too. We got mesmerised seeing such a beautiful lake in between high Himalayas.
This lake is not very well known to the people. People usually go to the Bhrigu lake and Rani Sui lake but not a lot of people trek here. We were the only ones to go there in winters. ❄️😀 That amazes me a lot when I think about it now.
We had a photography session here too and felt the tranquility and peace that this place had to offer. It was really an experience of a lifetime.
I couldn’t be happier as you can see in the photos. I was hypnotised by that beautiful sight of frozen lake in between the high mountains.
We also sat on the frozen lake and had fun as you can see in the photos below. Our bodies were freezing but we couldn’t resist.
We also went to the other side of the lake to see its beauty from different angle. I tried to capture all the beautiful views I was seeing but now I’m realising that the camera was not paying justice to what I was experiencing with my own eyes.
I’ve told you my story of visiting this beautiful lake in a great detail but you couldn’t certainly feel what I felt while I was there. For that you need to visit there yourself and get yourself exhausted while hiking in difficult terrain to get to the lake. After that you can really appreciate the fact that “The best view comes after the hardest climb”.
Thank you and love from Himalayas ❤️