So the trek went..

Our destination for this trek was a tiny herding village at the top of one of the mountains overlooking Palampur.  The village consists of 5 or 6 mud huts, stone walkways in between, and a lot of animal shit under some straw.  Once we arrived no one was energized enough to care where they stepped.  The huts are used when herders take their flock up the mountains to feed the herd the natural vegetation before it dies from the seasonal change.

Our ascent took a long time, it was very hot, dusty for parts, and long.  I was exhausted way before I should have been.  I attribute some of that to my habitual laziness, unfamiliarity with the altitude, and the heavy pack I was carrying.  I don't have many pictures because I was too tired to care.  I do have some memories though.  One of the stops I remember was at this herder's house who was generous enough to offer us some cucumbers.  I actually enjoyed vegetables.  I don't have any pictures but I can tell you these guys were legit mountain folk/herders.  All of them except this guy who looked like he stole Gregory Peck's eyebrows. see for yourself

I'm going to skip to the point that we reached the summit, since the rest of the story is a regurgitation of the paragraph above, except for the eyebrow stealing part.  So we arrive and file into the huts and the porters and Chaman start a fire in the corner of the hut and begin to prepare dinner.  The presence of smoke did not bother me as much as others.  I'm not going to question century old techniques of cooking dinner in a mud hut.  Dinner was great.

During the meal I was asked by Chaman and the porters if I would go with them to get water.  I agreed thinking that carrying water was something easy enough that I could contribute.  When the "journey" began I realized what had become lost in translation.  I had actually agreed to go with the porters to find the water.  It had rained and hailed after we first arrived in the huts so the ground was a little damp and there was bound to be some running water somewhere.  The psychological challenge of walking somewhere and not knowing if it is bringing you any closer to your destination is something to experience, especially with the onset of darkness.  Our journey lasted about 2 hours -- 40 minutes descending and the rest carrying the water back up.  I was dead tired for most of the journey, but the presence of some leopard poo served as a great motivator.  It was not a mud pie like the sheep/horse/cattle droppings and there was definitely some white hairs interwoven.

I'm going to publish the return journey on a separate post....it deserves some time to compose.