After creating a lot of buzz, finally "The Adventurer blog contest - July 2017" has come to an end and we are very grateful to all the participants for making it a big success.
We hope you loved recounting all your memories and very sure that our readers are not only going to enjoy them but truly get inspired for more adventures in future.
Enjoy ..The Adventurer Blog Contest Entries! Happy reading 
Contestant - Sandeep Bhat
Rain started to gain pace soon and by nightfall, we could hear heavy drops slamming down on the ceiling of our 6th-floor hotel room. Electricity took off for the night and we were stuck in our rooms, with the last of dying phone batteries and absolute darkness for company. The last straw came the next morning when all of my hopes of catching a glimpse of sun-kissed Kanchenjunga came tumbling down. Looking from the balcony of our hotel room, it looked as if the entire hill town.. Continue reading
Contestant - Pralaya Simha
All of a sudden, I saw someone else coming towards me completely doused. After inquisitive, I found that their kayak upset and he was protected. I took some rest, had water and again went into another kayak. This time I sit in front. It was very agreeable. Truth be told, while sitting in center I thought the individual at front should see the whole lake and that would be frightening. Be that as it may.. Continue reading
Contestant - Kratik Mehta
By the time we reached our first meeting point, one of the member of the group fell down due to some reason and he was injured. He was not sure how much he was injured but he was having pain in his hand. I haven’t witness him falling down but I reached when he got up and his scratches were being treated with savlon. Seeing him injured, my mind digressed towardsvarious thoughts which were downgrading my motivation and I was deterred and worried that hopefully I complete it. Because it.. Continue reading
Contestant - Praveen Kumar
Though we were slow initially, we kept picking up pace while confirming right trail with the villagers who met us on the way. After trekking for three hours we finally reached 'Jamnala'. Now we were on a proper trail made of stones & soil going through thick forest. As we walked through, sun shine kept diminishing and the cold picking up very fast, we put on warmers and were all prepared to face Continue reading
Contestant - Ishan Patel
First I went to Govindghat by bus which is 18 km from Joshimath. Govindghat is a hamlet on the banks of Alaknanda River. From there, it is 13 km trek to Ghangaria.The path was made of stones, well maintained and horses were also there for those who don't want to sweat at all. Ghangaria is situated at 3050 m altitude, the views were fantastic, and the hamlet has one single street full of hotels, restaurants, and shops.The strange thing was there was no room for..Continue reading
Contestant - Himangi Singh
Finally we made to the top at around 3:00 p.m. The feeling after being at the top is bliss. That is what keeps one motivated to walk further and not give up. But unfortunately there were a few fellow trekkers who could not reach the top. Maybe because it was their first experience of trekking and even after trekking 6-7 km the peak still looked distant to them and they all decided..Continue reading
Contestant - Saikat Mazumdar
We found green meadows and flat walking areas to pass and soon reached the café where we find many fellow travelers were camping. Don’t miss the small water pond just behind the café. The backdrop of mountains and trees makes the water heavenly. Just after the café, there is another café called Mountain quest café which is the last recognized café on the way up. After we passed the area the weather started getting worse with clouds accumulating over the mountains which signaled..Continue reading
Contestant - Vamini Sethi
I did find myself mostly struggling to match up to his speed at that altitude with limited oxygen. Unlike all the other treks that I have done before this, this one didn't give me a chance to look around as we had to constantly look down while trekking due to broken moraines and watching out for any crevasse that can be life threatening. After overnight snowfall, all the crevasses gets closed from the top and you don't know when you are going to step Continue reading
Contestant - Arjun Haarith
After walking for almost one hour we arrived to a small place that has flowing water and a small refreshing point (this place is called kanchinakere) we quickly filled our waterbottles before proceeding our trek. Our guide Narayana wanted us to reach the base of the waterfalls by 12:30 pm so that we could return back in time. Each and every tree was extremely huge that we had to trek in between the.. Continue reading
Contestant - Pratik Shaha
When I went to our toilet tent in which the pit was sculptured in the ground and I was like "shit!!!". That made us realize that we were truly out of our comfort zone. I have learned one very important thing in the mountains that there is no room for abashment. I still can't stop laughing when I remember how transparently and curiously we were asking this funny question to each other after coming out of toilet tent, "hey! .. Continue reading
Contestant - Anupam Chaubey
The forest was a typical one that looked like a movie shooting location. To our utter disappointment, the forest ran almost parallel to the road and we had to climb way high up which even might or might not lead us to the Falls. Or what we could do is to climb down and follow the normal route. Suddenly , Agni came up with the idea of the trek and to climb high above saying ," Mereko pata hai that I'm the rational guy but pata nhi aaj ek dam upar chadhne ka man kar rha hai. Let's do this guys!".. Continue reading
Contestant - Rachit Joshi
Now comes the hard part of the trek, the oxygen is thin and you need to do steep ascend. The trail was amazing, but you need to catch your breath after every 5-10 mins of walking. The sun was also shining real hard on all of us which was making the climb really hard. We reached the Kelva Vinayak temple after 2 hours of tiring ascend and the weather started changing again with some fog and winds. We had some tea here and continued our journey to ..Continue reading
Contestant - Mohit Anand
The real difficult part of the trek was yet about to start. From here we had roughly around 4 km of steepness. We crossed the Rudranag Bridge and the Steepness began! Now the breaks increased and we were resting after walking for 30 min. And that’s when the portable Speaker came to our rescue. We played some good songs and completed the difficult part of our trek making our way to the top by 2 pm. The sense of relief you get when you..Continue reading
Contestant - Sruthi Keerthi
I halted after every 500 mental counts for long deep breaths and a sip of water. We got from one tea stall to another minus the maggi – soaked in sweat, I battled fear of height, incline, fatigue, mental blocks and the unknown – still complaining (deep down I knew this cribbing was useless, 30 hours from now my body would no longer hurt, the irony - my body wasn't hurting yet). Unknowingly I crossed..Continue reading
Contestant - Kamal Gope
By 12 we reached Rhodovalley which was 6 kms from base camp and had a break of 15 minutes. Crossing the large valley through the grass lands we reached the base of a mountain and trek leader said Meesapulimala is behind this mountain. I was anxious to see the destination and wanted to ascend fast but all I could dowas to drag my foot one after another. Don’t know why but I was feeling very tired. But the fact which I later realized was that I have reached..Continue reading
Contestant - Utkarsh Mishra
After a lot of toil and sorting, we got room to spend the night, it cost us INR 500, and was entirely made up of wood. The night was cooler than expected with minimum temperature in double digits below Zero (precisely -11-degree Celcius). We had to cover up in all we had, wrapped in our sleeping bags and two layers of blankets, our toes still felt numb. On the right, you can see the effect of the night which delayed our morning plans...Continue reading
Contestant - Suvasini Raghavan
There was a mad rush in my head, out of excitement. I had never seen such a rich cover of green before. The air was fresh and filled with the aroma of damp wood and moist grass. As I moved ahead in the trail, the voice in my head slowly hushed down as I drank in the beauty of the place one sip at a time. The sound of water from the nearby stream was ethereal, as if it never existed. It was a zone-out moment for me entirely consumed in solitary contemplations ( or maybe just lost!).. Continue reading
Contestant - Damanjeet Singh
I looked in the direction he was pointing; I saw five waterfalls, dropping from the mountain in front. I stood there transfixed, so did my friends in a line, some understood, some didn’t. They will find their own paths. Why was I here? The answer lied around me. The answer lied in front. Over slippery paths that were steep and curvy. Over tricky climbs and scary edges,we steadily, slowly, in our own world, went on. My friend had a leg injury but never did he give up. Another one, a girl was taunted to be the weakest.. Continue reading
Contestant - Vishal Soni
We started trekking and reached a village called Dhundi by the afternoon. As soon as we reached Dhundi, it started raining and our trek leader decided to pitch our tents there itself. We learnt how to pitch the tents and pitched our own tents thereafter. We quickly went inside our tents as it was still pouring. The view from inside was breath taking. We had the 7 sisters mountain range right in front of our eyes. And as soon as we settled in.. Continue reading
Contestant - Akhil C Jose
The frozen sky was torn apart by a golden shine into an ocean of orange with purple reefs. We were a long way from home to be welcomed so gloriously by the mighty mountains. Our hearts were jumping around like a jackrabbit, overwhelmed by a content soul. We set our backpacks, collected our minimal gear, started heading down from the ITBP helipad plot. We waved thankfully to Mr. Pandey for helping us find Mr. Surendra S. Panwar who guided us in setting up all our vital gears and also .. Continue reading
Contestant - Jayati Adhikary
After enjoying the paratha and tea and getting some much needed rest we started our journey again. The path winded uphill amidst pine forest and though every one of us was tiring down, the blue autumn sky with white floating clouds, the snow clad mountains, the green pines and the mesmerizing beauty all around energized us to keep walking. We have to reach Bhujbasa today and before that we have to walk a distance of about one kilometer in complete silence, named.. Continue reading
Contestant - Kalyan Oruganti
After witnessing the spectacle, a session of interaction with fellow travelers followed. Nothing worth mentioning occurred after dinner. A sound sleep and I was all set to wake up and try my luck for the reflection of the Choukhamba in the Tal. The water levels in the lake weren’t up to to the mark; therefore the “REFLECTION PIC” for which this place is famous for, eluded me the first day. The sky was also overcast in the morning the next day, so not much scope for.. Continue reading
Contestant - Rahul Gupta
This was our first day of the trek, we woke up at around 5:30 am and got our morning tea at 6:00. We had our shower(no shower after this till we returned wink ) packed our bags and were ready for breakfast in no time. After breakfast, we gathered details of the trek from our leader and geared up for our impeccable journey we started from Lohajung at around 8:00 am. The journey was of about 11 kms and supposedly took around 6-7 hrs. The route was slightly .. Continue reading
Contestant - Priyanshu Mukerji
This was an exhausting day as the gradient was very steep for a non-geared cycle. So, I walked for some part of the trip rolling the cycle. This extended the day and I reached Munnar by evening. However, the planned motel was around 08 Kms down slope. This was the most dangerous and exciting part as I kept rolling down, in the dark, hearing the splashes of a nearby river, bumping on the half broken roads, with a mobile torch in my mouth.. Continue reading
Contestant - Apoorva Singh
It was absolutely dark with dense forest on both sides. But we just walked on. We were having thoughts about whether it was the right decision. What if some animal attacked! Also, there was absolutely no-one apart from us walking on the road at that hour. There was an occasional flash of headlights from some taxi ferrying tourists. We were so relieved when the ordeal ended and surprisingly it did not take very long. The first question we asked a guy.. Continue reading
Contestant - Mayank Gupta
While going to Balu ka gera, we had to cross a naala but while returning our Guide Uncle saw a layer of snow was up there above the naala. So, he decided to cross the naala above the snow. As it was a very thin layer of snow, chances were also that it could break anytime. The layer was very slippery and to be frank, I was really scared while crossing it. After crossing it, we returned to.. Continue reading
Contestant - Deepak Sharma
The camp was at the base of a hill and the ground was still like a slope. They had put up tents on a concrete base to keep them straight. Uphill was all forest and we could even see a snow clad slope at a short distance. The hill upwards looked enchanting and I decided to climb it for a little warm-up. It was quite slippery and muddy, but latching on to the grass and tree branches, I somehow managed to .. Continue reading
Contestant - Aman Khattar
The same day we trek our way to Kalga- Another place which subtly says "we don't give a flying fuck about the world". You need to Climb the stairs of death from Bharshaini to reach Kalga. Stairs as steep as a building we reached there breathing heavily and looking for a place to lay. Kalga is so isolated you'll hardly find people there, it is Paradise for stoners, Musicians, or anyone who is done with the world. We went to Kalga to be as close as possible to our trek the next morning to .. Continue reading
Contestant - Debjani Lahiri
We stopped at a place by 11am after covering 3kms for some chai break. After having much needed break, we headed for Megama which was our next stop for Lunch (another 3 kms from here). As we walked upwards, the weather changed suddenly and it was foggy and misty. So with our hunger pangs and tired bones we reached Megama at around 1 pm. We hurriedly grabbed our .. Continue reading
Contestant - Umesh Joshi
t was 6 pm and the temperature was falling quickly. It was freezing outside so we decided to go back to our tent. At late eve, we were called for dinner in a small warm hut. We were surprised to see a young boy cooking for all of us and our guide was helping him. The food was simple but delicious, they served Chapati, Sabzi, Dal and Rice which was good enough in such isolated place. You will find a rule written in hand made display board .. Continue reading
