Karin: We emerged at about 10.00 am, packed up some dal and rice and set off for the trail bound for the peak Chandrosila which towered above us at 4090 mtrs. We both struggled to begin with as even at 3,000 meters the air was quite thin and we seemed to be getting exhausted with even the slightest bit of exertion. As we walked up we stopped to chat to a girl called Amrita who is here on pilgrimage from Bombay with her family. She spoke wonderful English and as we made our way up the mountain in fits and starts we struck up a really good conversation.

Dan: Lessons I have learned today: never go hiking in thermal underwear...! It was very cold this morning, but being able to stay in bed till 9:00am made it worth it... The walk up the "hill" at Chopta was rather steep - Chopta is at 3000m, and when we reached the top, we'd climbed another 1000m to a height of 4000m. Karin, being the super-woman she is, decided to go bush and hike cross-country up the last 300m or so - by the time I reached the top, I was too shattered to do anything but collapse for 5 minutes. But when I recovered, and looked around, I was spellbound.
We've been seeing glimpses of the Himalayas for a few days now, and at Badrinath, a few peaks were visible.
But here.. we were surrounded by them. It was magical - the sort of views you see on posters or something, and think, "Wow"...

 
The view from Chadrosila
 
Karin: The view from the top of Chadrosila was breathtaking. We had a glorious panorama of the peaks of Kedarnath (6970m) Chaukumba (7070m) to the North and North West and the more distant peaks of Trishul (7120m) and Nanda Ghuti (6310m) to the east. We sat on the top and talked philosophy and spirituality with Amrita before making our way down in the gently fading light of the late afternoon.  We made it back to our camp down in Chopta some time before Amrita, and struck up a conversation with her father who was a professional painter in Bombay. He showed us his sensitive depictions of the mountains of Kedarnath and the shrine of Tungnath that we had passed on our way to the top. When Amrita returned, we agreed that we would try and meet up with them for the final event of Diwali to be held down in the valleys in a town called Haridwar, not far from Laxman Jula. We exchanged contacts and waved them off as they set off for their long drive down to the valleys. That night we ate again by the light of the tilly lamp and made plans for the next day and our return to Laxman Jhula.


Karin and Dan at top of Chadrosila


A barely visible Dan and Amrita at the top 

Dan: When we arrived back at the bottom, we had some difficulty understanding the plan for tomorrow. It sounded like the driver wanted us to leave at 5:00am the next morning, but we wanted to confirm this, just in case we got ourselves up early and found he was still asleep.
We got Amrita's father to translate, and found that thuis was right - we had another hill to climb tomorrow, and we had to start early and finish early so that we would be well on the 7-hour journey back to Laxman Jhula before it got dark.