Namaste 🙏
Hope you all are doing good!!!
After our tiresome hike back to Jobra Campsite, it was time to get back to the first Campsite before it gets dark. We had a long way back home and our legs were shaking with each step. We hiked back to the tree line in very less time as we wanted to reach before sunset.
What a great sight it was seeing those trees without any leaves starting bald on the mountain.!.! Those were the last trees and they already shed their leaves. They looked like trees drawn in paintings.
We were now close to the river and walking along in this golden hour it was a magical experience. The water flowing in the river was looking magnificent and had a greenish colour to it.
The Greenish Coloured Water
The Sunset 🌅-
After admiring the beautiful river stream along our way, we continued straight for an hour to reach near the centre point of the valley where we enjoyed the sunrise the previous morning. I didn’t took many photos during this time as I wanted to see the sunset near Chikka Campsite where the view is amazing with green jungle around us. This place has a really close connection to my heart from the previous morning and also from my past trip to Hampta Valley. It’s undoubtedly the most beautiful spot in this valley and we were there at the most beautiful time of the day. At sunset the previous day and also the sunrise now!!!
After spending a couple of days at the Hampta Valley and exploring it from many different perspectives, I was quite sure about my favourite part of the valley. To my eye, a perfect spot in a valley is a spot that has mixture of all the good things that one can imagine while spending his time in nature. The beautiful looking evergreen forest, a water stream with the clearest water you can imagine and the views of the mountains so mesmerising that you forget about everything else. These all things were present here.
The Tranquility of an autumn sunset above Chikka Campsite
But when we go beyond this sweet spot and gain elevation, the trees disappear. The terrain becomes monotonous and a bit off putting. I didn’t mean that’s bad, I loved every bit of the valley but this place was my sweet space.
My favourite spot in the whole Hampta Valley
The Sunset
Another thing that I loved about this place was colors that I was able to see from there during this beautiful autumn season and being there both at sunrise and sunset enhanced my experience. It looked like I was seeing twice as good as I see in day to day life.
View of eastern side
Also, we could see a lot of high altitude mountains from here that have a special place in my heart like Bhrigu Mountain.
Sun setting behind the Bhrigu Mountain
Even after sunset, the eastern side of the valley still had a good amount of sun on it. Also the little bit warmer and less harsh temperature made it comfortable for me to stay here as compared to the higher regions of this valley.
Reaching Chikka Campsite—
We were about to reach Chikka before our estimated time as we were almost running down from the mountain. Firstly we thought that we’d stay in the Chikka Campsite for another day but after seeing the pace we were at, we decided to pack our bags from Chikka Campsite and get back to our home the same day.!!!
It was not that we didn’t wanna stay there or we were fed up of the mountain. It was because we were running low on food and we all were super hungry. We didn’t wanna sleep hungry that night after such a long and tiring day full of adventures and as we had a time and energy remaining for remaining descent, we made that decision.
Stones kept by Shepherds for their camps near Chikka Campsite
We crossed all the difficult parts without feeling the difficulty that we were feeling on our way up. Now everyone wanted to go home eat like a big horse and relax.
The view behind
In spite of such a rushing effort of ours, I still managed to capture some photos for you guys even though they look a bit blurry as the light was not enough during that time.
We knew that we will be hiking in dark after some time and were getting mentally prepared for the same. The sun was almost out even from the eastern side and in mountains there is dark just after a few moments from the sunset.
Packing our stuff—
We reached Chikka Campsite at around 5:00 PM and we immediately started packing our camps. We did unpitched our camps in matter of 15-20 minutes and were good to pack everything now.
It was almost dark now and we had another adventure ahead of us. We had to hike for 3-4 km now in the dark, through the dense forest and with heavy loads on our back. It was going to be a hell of an adventure for sure and we were ready for it! I’m gonna post about that adventure in the next blog.
That’s all for today!!!
Peace ☮️
