Madhu K R's Weblog

Auli skiing continued

Second day in Auli

I got up very early in the morning. One thing I do most of the times when I am out traveling (specially in mountains) is to get up very early ( before sunrise ). Some the views of sunrise are breath taking.
I am sure you agree with me since you have seen those sunrise photos.

It was very cold in the morning. I was out with Saurabh taking pictures. There was a layer of cloud on top of Nanda Devi peak. Sun was rising behind Nanda Devi. As soon as we saw some light, the color of the cloud started to change. It was initially red. Then slowly changed to orange. Then bright golden color. I have tried to capture those lights in my camera by spot metering my camera to those clouds. Some the results were really cool.

We had told our instructor that we will report at 9.30 in the morning. But we reached there by 10 am. Kailash had already got Ski for us. We started immediately. Another instructor Pavan was teaching Saurabh. Saurabh was way ahead of us in terms of learning. He was very good in control but his body balance was not that great. He was now learning to turn.

Rest 3 of us were almost in the same phase. But Pramod showed lot of improvements initially. He was able to go some distance without fall. Jalan fell few times initially. But once instructor asked him not to use the sticks and go without them, he got the body balance right. I was in the same state as previous day. Falling most of the time. I felt little bad that I was not able to do it right.
Then I told myself that I can do better. So everytime I start, I was constantly telling myself to keep my body weight front and concentrate on controlling. I did pretty well then onwards.

Now I started to get the feel on skiing. I started going little fast and then trying to control by spreading the heals. I was doing quite confidently now. I was feeling happy about this.
I didn't fall after this point. I was in control all the time.

My next assignment from my instructor is to go down the hill then stop at sometime.
The slope where he was asking me to stop was still tricky. I used to pick speed just before he asks me to stop. But I was doing a good job on slowing down and stopping. Now I was enjoying skiing.

By this time for some reason, Pramod lost the touch. He was going very fast. When ever I watch him, I am pretty much sure that he will fall anytime. He was doing great job to avoid falling sometimes, But his body was not at all in balance. But he was turning very well.

For me turning became little tricky. I was turning easily to my left. But Right was little touch for me. I was doing half turn and then going down the slope. For some reason I right leg was not turning as much as I wanted. But I was pretty much confident that I can do but it is just matter of time.

We came back to Hotel by 3.30 pm. We had asked resort folks to provide gas stove and microwave.
We cooked some MTR ready to eat curries and ordered rotis from Hotel.

In the evening we played TT in the hotel. Hotel manager had told us that they would have a camp fire in the night. So Jalan and myself went down in the night after dinner to see it. Camp fire was about to start. We saw that there was a forest fire in one of the peaks in front of us.

I immediately ran to my room to let Pramod and Saurabh know about it and also got our cameras. We did try to take pictures by exposing for longtime. But none of those photos came good.

This was our last nite in Clifftop resort. We had to vacate as we didn't have reservation from next day. So we were having a long chat on what to do next. There were lots of brainstorming on this.

Some of the places we discussed were
Mussiorie
kasauni
Corbett National park.

Finally after lots of discussion we decided to go to Corbett.

Next day morning we checked out of the hotel in the morning. Saurabh and Jalan went for a half day skiing. I wanted to go around auli and explore. So Pramod and myself took the chair car and went down to GMVN (Ghadawal Mandal Vikas Nigam ). We went to a Hanuman temple. This place was very peaceful. We spent about 30 minutes sitting there and gazing the mountains.

We left Auli in the afternoon to Joshimat. We stayed back in the same Hotel Komet. In the evening Pramod, Saurabh and myself went to Narasimha temple and Shankaracharya Mutt. I was told that Lord Badrinath's Idol (of Badrinath ) will be brought to Joshimat during winter and will be worshiped from
Narasimha Temple. The reason is that during winter it is difficult to reach Badrinath.

We inquired about Bus to Corbett National park (Ramnagar). There was a direct bus but it was in the morning 3.30
So prepared mentally to get up early in the morning and set the alarms.

Travel to Ramnagar  was very long and tiring. It took 15 hours by bus. But I must say that the route was very scenic and had some breath taking views on the way. We reached Ramnagar by 6.30 in the evening.

Ramnagar

Situated in the rich farm belt of Terai, on the southeastern fringes of the great forests, the busy market town of Ramnagar is the main administrative center for Corbett National Park.

We first went to forest department. It was closed. But Jeep drivers there gave all the information
required for us to stay inside National park.


I will talk about Corbett national park in my next and final blog about this trip and also post some photos from Corbett.

Posted at 10:29PM Feb 14, 2006 by madhu in General  |