We finally put more pictures up – our hike to the waterfall this afternoon, Trevor and Joe’s experience at the Festival in Burruwa (in the Solong Winter folder), 3 surprise days of skiing at the local hill, and some pictures of life here at the Iceland.

We had been planning five days of camping up on Gulaba, and had our bags packed and a taxi hired for the morning of the 20th. Morning dawned with another snowstorm, so we scratched that idea. The next day was sunny, but we didn’t think the road to Gulaba would be open, so Trevor and I walked to Manali. We took the scenic route through the villages and orchards on the west bank of the Beas, and enjoyed friendly faces, plentiful bird life, and greening fields set against a backdrop of freshly snow-covered mountains.

With the clock ticking on Joe’s time in Solang (he had a ticket for the 1-day cricket match in Delhi the 28th) we decided we’d better get him up into the mountains one more time. Our bags were still packed, so we set out for Dhundi and Beas Kund on the morning of the 22nd. We planned to set camp further up the valley than on our last trip. There comes a point in the tour when the valley narrows, and a choice needs to be made between touring up the river bed, or taking a high route over some benches to the right. Our choice to take the high route didn’t work out particularly well. Several harrowing hours, nasty gullies, and difficult-to-traverse debris fields later, we set camp well short of our intended destination. It’s hard to complain about the site, though. Trevor and I agreed that it might be the most beautiful spot we’ve ever camped, with sheer rock cliffs, hanging glaciers, the river below, and Hanuman Tiba presiding at the head of the valley.

Morning brought bluebird skies and the sun on our tent at 7am. We set out for Beas Kund, but topography and avy considerations taken into account, we decided we were not in a position to make the tour. So we did a quick lap of the slope above us on some nice spring snow, and went back to camp for some serious lounging. We dug an L-shaped couch (complete with coffee table) and added the sleeping pads. Sunny, snacking, card-playing perfection, with an incredible view.

At dusk we were just finished eating dinner in the tent (protein nuggets in soup with pasta – yummy!) when we heard very strange noises coming from outside the tent, near the cliffs above our campsite. Somewhere between a goat, a hawk, and a dying crow…a repeated bleating/cawing that we didn’t know what to think of. Trevor made the excellent point that it would be better to check it out while there was still enough light to see, so I headed outside. I saw motion a few hundred feet up the hill – what looked like a fox. Joe and Trevor got outside the tent in time to see it make its way – stopping several times to look back at us – across the hillside and away from us. A few hours later we heard the same strange noise again. (A Google search has since revealed that foxes do make noise exactly like what we heard - who knew?) Overcast skies and a chilly wind convinced us the next morning that we should head home, and we had an interesting and enjoyable exit ski along the river. By the time we got home, it had gone from drizzling to raining, and it rained, snowed, and hailed for the next three days.

This afternoon we took a hike to a lovely waterfall just across the valley. We didn’t even know it was there until our friend Dev recommended we check it out. We started out after lunch, spotting one of the most interesting birds I’ve seen here before we even crossed the Beas - the hoopoe has eye-catching black stripes on its wings and back, and an impressive fan-shaped crest on its head. We continued on over the bouncy wooden bridge and through the boulder field of the river bed. The falls are not far from Old Solang, but even though you get a glimpse of them on the trail to the village, they are not exactly easy to get to. We tried the direct route first – following the stream up into a fantastic gorge, with ferns and flowers growing out of the overhanging rock walls. As the gorge narrowed, we couldn’t go any further. We retraced our steps, going around up through the village and over the ridge above. Views of Friendship peak over blooming yellow mustard crops, flocks of mountain finches performing synchronized aerials, and purple wildflowers clustered around every stream we crossed would have made the route worthwhile regardless, but we eventually rounded a corner to see the falls tucked back in a narrow valley, with sheer rock walls behind. We displaced a couple of kestrels, likely there in pursuit of the flock of snow pigeons cautiously foraging at the edge of a few patches of snow on the hillside. Two piles of pigeon-colored feathers (one in the lower gorge, one right by the falls) attested to the kestrels’ success. After sunning ourselves on a rock just outside the spray of the falls, we headed home for dinner.

Tomorrow we hope to head up to Gulaba again… wish us luck for better weather than the last two times!

Labels: hiking, Iceland Hotel, India, Kullu Valley, ski touring, Solang, Solang Valley, wildflowers