Indrahar Summit Run

The Triund trek is an immensely popular trek in the Indian Himalayas. This trek starts from Mcleodganj in the Dhauladhar foothills and climbs to the mountain ridge that overlooks the Kangra valley. Triund was my first solo trek. I distinctly remember my overnight bus, in 2012, from Delhi to Mcleodganj. Throughout that journey I was hungrily consuming information about Triund trail, and daydreaming of the coming adventure.

Since then I have completed Triund trek 4 times, but have never got the opportunity to go to Indrahar Summit. Summit Run Indrahar organized by Boots & Crampons this combined the trek with the challenge of a run (and conveniently, finished in one day), and was organized by dear Romil sir himself, signing up for the race was a no-brainer.

Warmup - A Hike to Gallu Waterfall

On 5 Oct, Wednesday, Dussehra day, I reached Mcleodganj, paying Rs. 600 to get there from Dharamshala bus station. Since I was sharing the cab, the cab person dropped me at a fork in the road. From that fork to my hostel was a hugely steep uphill, but of course I loved it!

At 8:30 am there was nobody at the hostel to receive me/ the room wasn’t ready. I waited for a while, kept my luggage in the dorm room there, and went towards Gallu Devi temple.

On the route I joined up with Anand, an NDA grad-turned-options-trader, who was going to Gallu waterfall. We had a nice hearty breakfast near Gallu Devta temple.

The hike to the waterfall was a nice 1 hour walk along the side of the mountain. The trail is a proper clearing to the side of mountain, albeit too many big rocks that are out there to cause sprains to unwitting folks.

The waterfall is at a clearing, and there is a maggi shop located right there.

On a small section, when finally approaching the waterfall, there was a very slippery piece of rock that I had to climb down. The tricky part was that if I lost balance and slid down, I would slip down some 10 feet onto rocks, which would have been a big ouch.

My Hokas were, as they would be throughout the trip, the heroes.

Capping off Day 1 with Speed Hike Towards Triund

In the Evening, I speed hiked towards Triund, stopping I think 30 minutes before I could reach there because of a strict turnaround time on my part (at 5:15pm). I was glad for that decision, as it got dark, the same way as it was at the final stage of the race.

At least I got an opportunity to use my head-torch. I was not able to put it on actually, and the main light got detached from the body of the torch, which meant that i had to hold the light like a torch.

After briefly freshening up, I decided to head for lunch at this place “Bodhi Greens” which was “just” 600metres from my hotel. No big deal right?

Turned out that almost the entirety of that 600metres was on a staircase! I very hesitantly went through the darkness in the route, which essentially connects hostels in Upper Dharamkot with Mini-Israel area of Mcleodganj, which is where Bodhi Greens is located. I finalized upon Bodhi Greens because of the Lonely Planet recommendation.

Once at Bodhi Greens I had their Buddha Bowl, which was very nice.

I then walked the stairs back up to my hotel.

WFM - Work from Mountains on Thursday & Friday

Thursday and Friday were work-focused, as I was working out of the Hotel room. Got some good work done actually, in between all the walking and roaming around. Both days I had lunch at Bodhi Greens.

D-Day - the race starts

2:30 am - Woke up; freshened up with a shower. Felt good overall. Had an apple before starting my run, and dressed up in shorts, my favorite orange shirt (from ADHM 2016), and a windcheater from Decathlon.

3:30 am - Started my Suunto watch and started the hike down to Regional Mountaineering Center.

3:55 am - Reached RMC, marked my presence, and had a wonderful black coffee.

4 am - Race starts; first thing I do is take off my jacket. It started drizzling lightly at Gallu Devta temple, but walking uphill was still more comfortable wearing only the shirt. I would only put it back on when reaching Triund.

The night view of Mcleodganj looked gorgeous at 4:30am in the morning. There were clear views of the city from parts of the trail, and no clouds to obscure the view. I wish I had stopped to click a photo.

I reached Triund, amid a bit of a snafu with my trekking pole. Bharath Thammineni, the co-founder of Boots & Crampons, very kindly fixed my trekking pole when I stopped for refreshments at the Triund aid station. Day started a little bit before Triund only, and at Triund top the sun was just behind the mountains, casting a beautiful gold halo around the Dhauladhar walls

At 7:30am I Reached Snowline. A lot of people doing the 20k overtook me at this time. The 20k route overlapped with the 30k route till Snowline cafe, and had started at 4:30am.

At the Snowline camp I Stocked up on water and Fast&Up energy drink and snickers. Uptil snowline my pace was fairly comfortable - 3:30minutes for 10kms is not bad, for such an uphill run!

Immediately on leaving Laka I was ambushed by a herd of goats, all of them nonchallantly staring at me.

By about 8:30am I had crossed the stream coming down the Laka glacier. Finally I was past the breezy slopes of Triund ridge, and getting ready to take on the mighty Indrahar pass. The terrain felt okay and not really scary to be honest.

8:30 am-ish - The crux of the race starts at this point. I got lost getting up towards Laka Got. The rather damp soil (meaning that it was held together well) and my strong Hoka shoes somehow gave me confidence to climb up what must have been a 60% slope.

I kept repeatedly getting lost, mainly because I was lacking the discipline to always be in sight of the flags marking the route. I thought I could take a better stretch for a while, but once I took it the flag was nowhere. That is basically how I warmed myself up.

The grass & soily lower slopes of the Indrahar climb gradually gave way to boulder hopping. The trail became much rockier, and more vertical. Every step uphill required deliberate placement.

My uphill section was strong, relative to other climbers.

However, in terms of the time, it was extremely slow-going. Looking at my run on Suunto later, I had a pace of 1km per hour, in the last three hours of the mountain climb! And mind you I was panting. That is where the combination of acclimatization and fitness come in. Stronger fitness would have helped me climb higher faster, while stronger acclimatization would have helped with controlling the breathing.

11:47 am - Reached the summit, after some amazingly difficult climbing. Towards the end of the summit push it was just that I wanted to get there before my system figured that it couldn’t keep it up at 100% Heart rate and that I would have to slow down.

There was lots of route-finding and going down along tricky rocks.

It got very cloudy, and the group of 4 gentlemen who were around me sped up much more, so I was left just scrambling around. There were times when I was afraid I was lost. That was the truly scary part in all of this.

After stumbling along the awesome flags used to mark the route by Boots & Crampons team, finally around Lahesh caves I met Chetan Sehgal, who helpfully guided me across the glacier crossing and accompanied me to Laka. This time around we took the proper route down to Laka glacier.

From Llaka on down I was finally on level ground. I rushed towards the camp. By now I was also very mindful of the overall time. I had booked the return bus ticket in advance - for 9:30pm in the evening, and really wanted to board that, so that I could have a relaxed Sunday at home.

When getting to my bus is more important than finishing the race

At 4pm I Reached snowline cafe, and shamelessly stocked up again on Snickers

I tried to speed hike down the narrow and exposed trail from Snowline to Triund. Even though I thought I was walking fast, I wasn’t able to overtake locals who were also descending.

At 5pm I reached Triund, full with its party crowd from across North India. I also passed a flock of sheep who were on their way up. I basically tried to speed hiked the 8kms from Triund to the race ending point, twisting my ankles multiple times as I did so. My trekking pole was super helpful in ensuring that the ankle twists did not become sprains/ ligament tears. It got quite dark and foggy also, but somehow I had the energy to want to run when going downhill.

7:11pm - Finished race at RMC!

Amazing organization by B&C

What I loved about the event:

1. The hydration support - There were hydration points even on the steep rock wall, and at the summit point!
2. The route markings - I didn’t have much benefit from the route markings early in the run. However
3. the support personnel were extremely supportive. On reaching Indrahar top I expressed my concern about descending and got a gentle encouraging reply, to take it easy, and till Laka there is no need to hurry

As always, the energy Romil sir brought into the event was absolutely shining through!