Hail Storm in the Himachal

We had a relaxing 3 hours packing, then a two hour lunch (how can lunch be two hours?), at Nicks, then the long drive to the trailhead. But this is the omelet served out of the very sketchy tent at Triund. It was a warm, humid afternoon, and a long hike, arriving at Triund around 6:30, but we still needed to hike for one and one half hours.   I did not bring a sleeping bag, only my puffy jacket and pants.    Up at 4:30, hiking around 5:45, heading for the peak, a bright sunny day.  Once started, we noticed an interesting route up Mount Mun, (15, 435 ft) a bold line up a steep couloir. We hiked for hours, but realized the snow was getting too soft to really be safe to continue to the top, especially with the sun on us. So we traversed sideways and down to another a  couloirs , the normal route,  aiming for the pass (which we could have done in the beginning, but what would be the adventure in that?)
 

 The ridge at the top of the range, in the clouds would be Mount Mun.

 I came over to inspect, beneath a huge rock cairn. I took the crampons off and bouldered up to the next cairn, and thought, I could do this. I made it to the top in about 43 minutes, great view of the great Himalayas beyond.  I also started up the ridge toward Mount Mun, to check conditions, which were dry, but the clouds continued to roll in.
 

The scene at Triund, a popular Indian trekking destination. Lots of dogs, tents, team sports,  and chatter.  





Our camp just below the glacier.






Our original  route in the background, the left coulior. The mountain is huge.  Most people take 3 days to do this project.

 glissade forever

It was around 2:30 now, and we started the glissade down the snow, very mellow, but far, glissading for miles. Then it started to get more cloudy, and lightning and thunder then hail. Then big hail. Then wind. We tried to  take shelter next to a rock at the edge of the glacier, but soon were covered in hail and wet. We decided to continue down in the storm. We could see some blue tents in the distance, but decided they were in the wrong place and without reason (hungry? tired? cold?) unexpectedly and totally made the wrong decision to head over the ridge, thinking our tents were on the other side. It was hailing hard, and we had to take shelter again under some rocks in a tiny cave. I was thinking we were all going to get hypothermia, I was eating everything I could find to stay warm, they had been calling to me from their cave, when should we leave?  How much light is left?  We started down the mountain, but the wind was blowing the hail sideways, and we had to take shelter against the side of another rock it was so fierce.  Finally we set out again, for a little blue tent shelter vendor place.  We ducked inside where there were three other people taking shelter, they were getting ready to spend the night. The tin door was rattling in the wind, the wind was screaming, it was hailing,  everyone was crouched down like cave people.  I was soaked, freezing cold.  We lit up the reactor stove and bought a couple of packages of top ramen to try and warm up and decided to head for the tents, we couldn't stay here, we had no blankets. It was 6:50 PM, it gets dark here around 7:30. 

I was worried, how would I be able to keep my feet warm in the tent, since I had no sleeping bag.  How would I get dry?   I did not need to worry about that. The tents were gone. All that remained was a lone stake, sticking up out the grass.   Looks like we walk to the bottom. 

It was getting dark, but in a last desperate attempt to find our tents we looked over the steep edge of the precipice, where we saw a little spot of yellow.  My tent!  We walked down, found both tents, pretty mangled, everything inside soaked.  We hurriedly packed up the disaster, and started the hike down.  It was nighttime. The walk would not end, it went on forever. 

And that is how we arrived at the parking lot at 1:00 AM, camping in the dirt, woken up at 5:00 AM by a barking dog and motorcycles.  Camping in the parking lot was not the first thing I would have thought of, but that is what we came up with.