Bhrigu Lake Trek – A journey through meadows, rocky mountains and glaciers
Not a month had passed since our last trek and we were planning another one. This time we are planning a high-altitude trek to Bhrigu lake.
It is known as the place where the famous saint Maharishi Bhrigu sat in deep meditation.
Bhrigu lake is located at an altitude of 4300 m, surrounded by Pir Panjal and the Dhauladhar Mountains. This trek has gained preference due to its unconditional representation of natural spectacles.
Bus Journey To Manali
On August 6, 2019, our Volvo bus was booked for 10 p.m. and we arrived at the bus station (Majnu Ka Tila, Delhi) around 9:30 pm. We stowed our backpacks in the luggage compartment of the bus and got on the bus.
We had packed dinner that we ate later on the way, it was a night drive so after dinner we discussed the plan for the next day and went to sleep, when we opened our eyes in the morning we were surrounded by beautiful hills.
Reaching Manali And Looking For Accommodation
We got to Manali around noon, then took an auto rickshaw up the street from the bus stop to the mall road. We headed towards the hotel that we searched online and checked in. We got a room in the attic with a balcony to the front. We quickly freshened up after this long tiring journey, then we got ready and headed to the mall road.
The Prominent Mall Road
As we walked down the street from the mall road we noticed some nice cafes and restaurants, one of which was “The Corner House“, so we decided to have lunch there.
First, we ordered tomato soup and then wood-fired pizza. While we ate our slices, we also enjoyed the sight of all the people hanging out on the street of the mall road.
After our lunch, we clicked on some random snaps and walked around the market looking for an umbrella as we didn’t want to experience what we had on the Rajgundha trek.
Then we came back to our hotel and took some rest till the evening. Around 09 PM we ordered dinner from the hotel restaurant to our room. After having dinner we packed our backpacks for the next day’s adventure.
8th Aug 2019, Day 1 – Manali To Rola Kholi
We started the day at 6 am, got ready with our bags and then went to breakfast at the hotel restaurant.
After breakfast, we went outside to book a local taxi to Gulaba, from where our hike would begin. We inquired about the convenience at the taxi stand on the mall road but they were charging 3k which was of course, not our choice. So we decided to ask some local taxis. Fortunately, we found a guy who agreed to drop us off at the Gulaba checkpoint. He charged us Rs.600 but that was almost 4-5km from the trail.
We arrived at the checkpoint and waited a while to get some convenience from here to our starting point, but all vehicles drove in the direction of Manali, not in the Gulaba, only reserved taxis were allowed to cross the checkpoint and a pass is necessary to cross the checkpoint.
It was already 11 a.m. and we waited almost half an hour, so we decided to walk. The officials at the checkpoint guided us to take the short route, after about 2 km we were back on the road and we decided to hitchhike. So we tried to stop the vehicles, but so far we have had no luck. Then a taxi stopped, but unfortunately, they didn’t have enough space for the two of us, but we appreciated it.
Moving forward another taxi stopped and luckily they had space in the back seats, it was a group of people from South India, they left us at the starting point of the hike, we thanked them for their kindness including the taxi driver.
Hitting The Trail
Finally, our actual hike to base camp (Rola Kholi) started. We had to cover a distance of approximately 7 Km and it was 01:30 PM. As we started walking further, with the time the views changed, now we were surrounded by vast mountain ranges and grass-covered meadows. During the monsoon season, flowers bloomed amazingly all over the grasslands. We were capturing every scenic view on our way.
Cooking On The Trail
It was around 4 PM, we stopped at a point to eat something as we wanted to fuel up our body with some energy, we cooked cuppa noodles on our stove and had chocolates.
After this little break, we continued our hike as we needed to cover around 4 km more. Meanwhile, we met a group of hikers who were ahead of us. We had a little chit chat with them and got to know that one of their group members was lagging because of her sudden injury. Unfortunately, she had a sprain in her foot and was not in the state of mind to continue the trek.
When these kinds of unwanted things happen, generally our mind tells us to quit right there and step back. But we have to be mentally prepared for extreme conditions as per our strength because circumstances can change at any time.
We realised that we had very little time to cover the distance, so we both decided to move ahead of the group. We continuously walked at a normal pace without taking breaks. As we were gaining height, the temperature was decreasing, so we put on our jackets.
Reaching Rola Kholi Base Camp
It was around 6:30 PM, the sun had set, suddenly we were surrounded by fog and it started drizzling. We increased our pace but in the dark, it was very difficult to stay on the right trail but somehow around 7 PM we reached Rola Kholi.
There was a local shop, and we asked the owner, who was an old man if we could pitch our tent anywhere near the campsite. He said yes without any hesitation, so we quickly pitched our tent near the river which was away from the other tents. Since it was still raining we slipped into it to set up everything.
After a while, we went to that shop to have Tea. He had a fireplace inside his shop that was quite comforting for us. As we were half drenched so we sat there next to the fireplace and started talking to him while enjoying our Tea. He asked us about our journey and also shared his life experiences here. It was dinner time so we decided to have bread with soup which we carried along. Then we asked him for a packet of bread but he offered us a real meal- Rajma Chawal. We were so grateful to him for his generosity. While he was preparing dinner we asked him about the next day’s route. He suggested that it might rain tomorrow and the fog would be much denser, so it’s better to take a halt for one day and depart for the summit the next day.
With his valuable advice, we came back to our tent after having dinner. It was continuously raining but now we had nothing to worry about, we were all set after having that fulfilling dinner. We decided to call off the day without deciding tomorrow’s plan. Let’s see how the weather will be tomorrow.
9th Aug 2019, Day 2 – Halt At The Bhrigu Lake Base Camp
The next morning we woke up at 6 AM, freshened up and prepared Tea and Coffee, weather was very cloudy as the old man said and it was still raining. We were waiting for the rain to stop and the sun to rise so that we could start our adventure to Bhrigu lake. After a while the rain stopped for some time, we went to the shop to buy snacks to carry along on our hike. We discussed the weather conditions about which he was sure that rain would not stop, so he suggested dropping today’s plan and wait for the next day as some of his known locals were coming to visit Bhrigu lake.
We decided to stay and planned a small hike to a nearby mountain across the river. Then we had soup and bread for our breakfast before leaving. Around 10 AM we packed a small bag with some snacks and two water bottles. It again started drizzling so we took our umbrellas with us.
We hiked for about an hour and reached a certain height from where we could barely see our campsite. We clicked some pictures there and enjoyed our snacks with the views of snow-capped mountains. We got excited for our next day’s journey with these mesmerizing views. After spending some time there we came back to our campsite.
We took some rest and had a cup of tea as we were feeling a little cold due to the continuous rainfall. We also had lunch there at the shop and on today’s menu, he served us Dal-Bhaat.
During our lunch, he told us that from October onwards till winter season the entire area is covered with snow, so trek during winters is impossible to attempt and he also goes back to his village.
Later at around 2 PM, we headed back to our tent to take some power naps, we got up at around 4 PM and went to a nearby place where we could get our mobile networks up, we called our family and informed them of our journey so far.
Then it suddenly started raining so we ran to our tent. We then made tea, coffee and enjoyed them with biscuits and aloo bhujia namkeen. We had nothing to do as it was raining so we decided to watch a movie.
It was 9 PM so we thought to go to the shop and have dinner but it was raining heavily so we decided to cook our dinner. We had a packet of ready to eat veg pulao. Then we decided to sleep as tomorrow we had to start up our day early.
10th Aug 2019, Day 3 – Hike To The Sacred Bhrigu Lake
Still drizzling, we woke up and went out for a weather check, the day was about to get clear in some time as we could see the sun rising from far. Although it was a guess and it came out to be true.
Around 8 AM we got ready and went to the shop for breakfast and inquire about the people who were supposed to arrive today. As we finished eating Aloo Paranthas those guys entered the shop and the old man introduced us to them. We all had tea together and they told us their reason to visit Bhrigu Lake. They were supposed to perform a small prayer at the shrine nearby the lake.
It was around 09:15 AM we packed some snacks, juice and water bottles in a small backpack for the trek.
We all crossed the river first and started to walk through the meadows. Initially, the trail was quite steep so it took us some time to maintain the pace. After walking a while we all stopped and took some rest. We shared our snacks that we all carried along and gained some energy back as we were about to ascend on the steep mountains ahead. They also offered us some toffees, one of the men said that toffee keeps our mouth from drying out. Here is another tip that we noted.
We started our adventure again after about 15 minutes. Eventually, we left the meadows behind and unexpectedly we were on the rocky mountains which lead us to the glaciers. The weather got hazy and misty, we were not able to see anything after a two-metre distance. So we both were trying to catch their pace and walk closely with them as we didn’t want to lose the trail.
Henceforth we were on the glaciers now, that was our first experience to cross such huge glaciers, it was all slippery but anyhow we managed to continue. The gaps between the rocks were covered with hard snow and it was quite unpredictable to look for the gaps. We didn’t want to fall off and get into trouble so we were very cautious. Later after crossing the danger zone, we all clicked some photos and moved ahead.
In about half an hour we reached our destination, the Bhrigu lake. The lake was surrounded by snow-capped mountains and grassland, there were many rock structures formed by the trekkers and one of them was built by the locals for worshipping. Those guys bathed in the holy lake and then went to the shrine.
The water was icy cold, I wanted to bathe but couldn’t so we went into the lake till my knees were deep. After all this, we sat there for a while and enjoyed the view and had some light snacks.
We had a long journey to go as we planned to go back to Manali the same day, so we descended quickly, it took us around one and half hours to reach the base camp, we packed our camping stuff and started our way back to Gulaba.
Bhrigu Lake To Manali – Out Of The Blue Experiences
We walked for about an hour and suddenly we saw two bears on the mountain adjacent to the trail. They were standing behind a tree and it was our first encounter with wild bears. We then moved further on our way and after some time we reached the main road, there we were looking for a lift to reach the Gulaba checkpoint and luckily we found a trailer carrying a JCB excavator. We asked them if they could drop us off at Gulaba and they agreed. We quickly hopped into the JCB, it was quite funny and full of excitement.
We reached Gulaba checkpoint around 4:30 PM and our Volvo bus was booked for Delhi at 8 PM. We had approximately 4 hours to reach Manali. We were waiting at the checkpoint for some convenience but got no luck. However, a checkpoint official asked us to take a lift from any truck that was heading to Manali. He stopped an IOCL tanker truck for us, we thanked him and got into the truck. The truck driver was a middle-aged man. He told us about his experience, from the beginning he was driving trucks for the past 30 years in the hilly areas. Almost after half an hour, Manali was 6-7km away and there was a long traffic jam that took us around 2 hrs to reach. At 7 PM he dropped us at Manali bypass. We thanked him and gave him Rs. 500 for his generosity, he refused but we insisted. He wished us all the best and then we got down and took an auto-rickshaw to the Manali bus stand. We had dinner at the nearby restaurant before catching the bus.
Around 8:30 PM we got on the bus and our journey back to Delhi started.
This trek was such a great experience and we were already missing the mountains, so we thought we should plan our next trek very soon.