Trans Hima 2020 – 56 Pinau to Bursol

It was total bliss in the guest room of our host at Pinau. Cosy bed, warm room, absolute silence, yummy licious home food, non expecting hospitality. The woman of the house woke us up at sunrise with hot chai and we were on our way! Target today was to contour downstream the Kali Ganga valley and head into the river valley flowing from Wan and then cross over Bekal Tal into the neighbouring valley of Kolpuri.

A nice path contours along the steep valley slope high above the Kali Ganga river downstream from Pinau. It s a 13km traverse through uninhabited no man’s land towards Bank, the first village in the Wan river valley. Initially the valley slope is pretty barren consisting of burned grass. As we slowly descend into the Wan river valley it is more forested. The morning sun rays beautiful lit up the forest.

It s a good three hour walk on empty stomachs before we hit a bridge to cross over the Wan river to the opposite valley where we climb up 600m steeply to Lohajang, the base village of the famous Brahma Tal trek. Starved we drop into a small dhaba popular among the locals and indulge in aloo paratha with sweet curd. We see several trekkers passing by for the Brahma Tal trek including two of my Insta followers who recognize me.

Not wanting to take the touristic route we drop down to Mundli and contour up towards the ridgeline separating the next neighbouring valley of Kolpuri. An 800m ascent along a beautiful rock path with no one around gets us on top. From here we climb up another 200m through scenic desolate forest along the ridgeline to the first basecamp towards Brahma Tal at 3000m. At least 50 tents are pitched up around a small lake with hundred+ hikers around.

We quickly escape from the touristic hotspot and drop into a nice path into the neighboring valley. Initial descend goes through beautiful native forest until we hit the meadows where we pass through spread out farming settlements. After a late afternoon samosa snack soaking up the sun in the meadows, a wide rock path gets us down into the valley and various small hamlets till we hit the river after a 1300m descend from the ridge above.

We cross a small bridge and climb up to the village of Bursol, our target for the night. Unfortunately we Don t find any shop or dhaba and descend back to the river where we find a road side dhaba. Two teas with cream rolls and we grab some biscuits before the shop closes. We pitch up the tent on a nice flat terrace farm a bit higher and dream off to the soothing sound of the stream below below a bright moon in the peaceful night.