Snow hike to the middle of the woods near Ksheri Village, Inner Himalayas.

Namaste 🙏

Hope you all doing great!

We were now at Shegli village in inner himalayan region of Kullu district. This is one of those areas which are not yet explored by tourist and regular crowds. Most people who visit Manali and different places go on in search of snow to popular places like Solang Valley an Atal tunnel but all they find there is polluted snow with lots of crowd and tourist all around them and no peace at all.

On the contrary, just look at this place, you will see why I am saying on the contrary just by looking at the pictures!!!

This is one of the most pristine places in the valley with cleanest air and clean snow all around. After parking our motorbike on the side of the road, we decided to do a short hike in the middle of the woods.

My brother was walking in front of me, and he was making footsteps for me as I was wearing sneakers, and I couldn’t walk on snow because of that. It was pristine Snow fresh Snow I must say. The 1st foot steps on the snow was the footsteps of my brother, and I was keeping my foot on the same foot mark that my brother left so that I didn’t pollute the snow, and also my grip in the snow was good.

I couldn’t believe where I was walking as it was looking a dream like place. We were alone in the middle of the woods with snow kept mountains, all around us, and the dark dense forest was adding to the dramatic vibe of this place.

As I was wearing sneakers, and I was totally unprepared for the snow, my shoes and my socks were completely drenched with water now. It was only 15 minutes we had been walking on snow, and I could already feel cold in my feet.

It was a little slow that we needed to climb, and I was sliding on the snow because of my shoes. I even fell on the ground, a couple of times, and my brother took care of me at that time. I tried to find a stick so that I can walk properly, and I luckily found one.

We walked for about 20 minutes in the words until we realised that there was no one around us at all. We certainly realise there was death silence all around us, and all we could hear was the sound of air flowing and snow falling of the tall trees of pine.

We recited that as it was winter time here and the wild animals, they come down to these lower slopes of the forest to save themselves from Harsh, cold winter environment in the upper regions of the Himalayas. We certainly realise that there could be some animals around us and they could attack us.

That thought I attended us a little bit, and we were now careful. We were now noticing each and every thing that was happening around us, and we were also enjoying the view with that.

I suddenly remembered all the stories that I heard from the olden. People in my villages about the encounters with wild animals in the time of winters. There was one story that resonated with me the most at the times I was standing in the middle of the woods. It was a story of a person living in my village and he was about the age of my grandfather. He used to go to the woods in such of firewood And the woods that my grandfather talked about what the same woods we were standing in.

So what happened was as he was gathering firewood for his house. He suddenly got attacked by a snow leopard from behind. Luckily, he was having an axe with him, and he attacked that no leopard with that and saved himself.

In spite of that, he got a huge car in his bag that reminded him of this horrible incident that happened with him at that time throughout his life, and also it was a lesson for everyone in the village about how dangerous it could be to visit these woods in winter time.

We didn’t wanted to get attacked by a wild animal, so we decided to find an open spot in the middle of the woods, where we can see at a long distance. As most wide animals hide themselves behind the trees, were going to find a place where there were no trees.

After walking for a while, we found just the spot we were looking for. It was a spot right in the middle of the woods and they were no trees in this particular spot. It looked like this spot was used by Shepherd to keep their shape in the summer times, as we could see a lot of plane areas where Shepherd pitched their tents.

This area was quite open as we could see at a long distance and even see the Kali Hani pass riding in front of our eyes.

I tried to capture a panoramic view of this area for you guys by using my iPhone camera and using the panorama pictures, specifically to capture this beautiful shot that you will be seeing below.

My feet were freezing now as they were very wet from the walk we just did, and I was wearing the sneakers all the time . We were feeling quite safe standing in this space as we could see at a long distance, and we also had sticks with us so that we could fright the wild animal, even if it comes near to us. We know that wild animals don’t come near to human beings if they see us at a distance, so it comforted us a lot that we were in an open area.

I took off my shoes here and sit there for a while until my feet got heated up again. We enjoyed the views there for another 15-20 minutes before we headed back to the road.

It was indeed one of a kind experience that we had that day, and it will be remembered forever by both of us.

That’s all for today.

Thanks for passing by.

Peace ☮️