1st Assisted DIY trek

[Lay]

For the 1st time in history of Indiahikes and I feel in history of india we organized Assisted DIY trek. Where trekker will do the whole trek in DIY style but trek leader will be there to assist them.
As a trek leader of Indiahikes I got this opportunity. Here a small photo story of how that trek went. 

What was thought behind Assisted DIY trek?

There will be a group of trekkers accompanied by only a trek leader. The whole trek will be do it yourself style, which means they have to set their own campsite , they have to cook their own food and navigate by themself.

Basecamp for Kedarkantha Trek : Gechwan

Day 0

The Trekkers arrived and I did a basic briefing and then explained DIY in detail. We created a team of two and went to collect the ration according to measurement. They also learnt the calculation and proportion of how to make food.
We collected everything and brought it together. Divided equally and started packing.

 

Day 1

Morning we started with learning basic skills of trekking like how to tie your shoe, how to use your trek pole, how to carry a backpack. with energetic workout we started with our trek.

  

 

Found Rohdos on trail.

We reached our 1st campsite almost 4 o'clock. After reaching some trekker set the campsite (we chose to select our separate campsite then the normal one where IH do everytime.), some started preparing food and it looked like this.

 

Day : 2

With a good warm up and streching  we started our day. We made our breakfast , wrapped everything and we were ready to move to 2nd campsite. The day is mall but weather was not that good.

 

we were about to reach 2nd campsite Pukhrola and it started snowing. we reached campsite around 1.30 / 2 and quickly started setting our campsite.

 And this is how it was when we were pitching our tents.

   

 We cooked our food and we couldn't go out because of bad weather. Even after having lot of time we couldn't move out much.

Day : 3

We woke up early morning for summit push but weather was still bad it was snowing through out the night. We had breakfast and we were ready to move but the weather prediction was snowfall full day till 4 in afternoon. So we waited till 6.30 for weather to get better. We started attempt for summit at 7. In just  min it started snowing heavily so considering the safety of all we had to take the decision of not moving ahead and come back to the campsite. I think this what mountain has planned for us.

At around 11 we got clear weather for half an hour in which we wrapped our campsite and we were ready to go to our 3rd and last campsite. Even when we were going it was snowing  which was a very beautiful scene to see walking in woods and it's snowing.

   

This was at somewhere 4 o'clock and it started clearing up and in no time we had clear sunlight upon us.

 And it gave us the time to explore forest handsomely. where we sppoted lot of moss and lichens.

    

We established our campsite. This was the 1st day trekkers pitched a toilet tent and they enjoyed the process because I gave them a challenge.

We enjoyed the sunset. 

     Here we spotted Venus and Jupiter.

All decided to make dinner in different ways so we cooked each and every item from our menu thoda thoda. So we had khichadi, hyderabadi biryani, Munchow soup, sweet corn soup, pineapple shira, vermicelli kheer for dinner.

 

 

We did stargazing. After that Me and another trekker decided to sleep outside in open with million stars being our roof.

    

Day : 4 

We woke up late, wrapped everything and started around 11 from Akhoti. Did hug a tree on the way which was a very emotional moment for all trekkers. We collected 9.1 KG of waste in total. Reached basecamps at 4.45. Segregated waste and at 6.30 we stated post trek equipment check ration logging. Only 100 grams of waste generated from the kitchen.