It is the winters of North India and when it starts snowing in the Himalayas, then the entire villages and mountains get covered with a sheet of fresh snow. It is talked about when I lived in Beed. The height of Beed is 1500 meters, Beed is famous for paragliding all over the world. Pilots from country and abroad come here to enjoy paragliding.
But this time my friend and I had to enjoy something else and that was fresh snowfall and running in the snow. Looking at the fresh snowfall last night from below, I feel like running and playing on the snow. So we make a plan and leave with all the salmon. As per the plan we will go to a hut located above Chhina Pass and stay there overnight and come back the next day.
I pack dry ration, sleeping bag, mattress, warm hat etc. in my rucksack. We go to Billing by two wheeler, the distance till here is 16 km and the height of this place is 2450 meters. This place is paragliding take off side and some of the restaurants here are white with snow. We reach Billing in one and a half hour and seeing the snow present there, we are as happy as a child is on seeing ice cream in summer.
There is a walking route from here, there is a lot of snow on the way. This road goes from Billing to Rajgunda via Chhina Pass. The distance of this jeep track is total 24 km but we have to go till Chhina pass only till the distance which is 12 km and plus two km till Sarai where we are going to stay tonight. Without losing time, we walk on the snow and leave towards our destination. Wherever you look on the way, there is only snow, all the trees and plants are covered with snow.
The weather is very cold, cold wind is blowing from above, so water is flowing from my nose. I am wondering why we came here in this cold. We are two people and there is no one here except us. After about 3 hours of walking we reach Chhina Pass from where it takes us another 40 minutes to reach the inn.
This inn has been built by the local people so that devotees can come to the temple and stay here to cook and rest. Utensils and food items are already present in the inn. We spread our mattress and I go nearby and collect dry wood. When the fire burns in the inn, the atmosphere becomes hot. Soon we make and drink tea and prepare for dinner. We make dal and rice for dinner.
The fire is still burning and it is 10 o'clock in the night, by now we feel sleepy so we lock ourselves in our sleeping bags and go to sleep. Eyes open at 6 in the morning. The wood kept burning throughout the night, so the weather remained warm in the inn. At 7 o'clock we prepare and drink tea and leave the inn at 8 o'clock. Now we have to go back down to our house. My shoes have become wet while walking in the snow, now I am feeling cold and I want to go home soon.
We reach Billing in 3 hours from where we sit on our two wheeler and immediately leave for home. So this was the story of my one night stay in winter where I stayed amidst the snow.
