LADAKH - FINALLY.......

After out trekking in himachal in september 2006 we had decided in principle that we would do some trekking in ladakh. Ladakh was supposed to be different , the altitudes higher , the terrain more rough and barren.....our trek guide told us that its more physically demanding too. So our group (young at hearts club) had unanimously decided that the next destination was going to be ladakh. The planning started but things kept on getting postponed cos it was difficult for all of us to get 10-12 days leave at th same time.....one year passed by and nothing happened ...gradually our trekking group diminished in number and only the hardcore adventurists remained....suhas went to singapore, hema had no company, dr.mulgaonkar was fulfilling his family duties, rishi n seema werent intrested and so on n so forth.....the sahyadri treks were kept going by the initiative of ravi, samir n myself......we really enjoyed those treks.....thats when we came to the conclusion that if we wanted to go to ladakh we should simply go and not wait to collect a big group....i gave the go ahead to samir to plan a program.....unfortunately ravi had to go to australia and shailesh had family commitments so finally its was just us two......samir roped in dr.sanjay garude ( he is a fitness freak) and we had a group of three....samir zeroed in on aquaterra ( recommended by NGC) and we booked ourselves for a moderate difficulty trek- THE RIPCHAR VALLEY TREK.

And i really think that was a very good decision by samir ....proved right a hundred times over in retrospect....lots of emails were exchanged with the organisers....tickets booked ( all by samir) . we planned a precision surgical strike ...quick in n quick out....the ticket bookings were done in such a way that while going we reached leh from mumbai in total of 7 hours and while returning we reached mumbai fron leh in just 6 hours.....that was some planning....