Day 4: Dodi Tal – Dharwa Pass (~4000 m)

5 Nov 2025

I’d slept fitfully the night before. The thunderstorm and pelting rain kept me awake, haunted by the worry that the tent might take off in the night. But at some point I must have actually slept, because I remember waking. 6-ish. The weather had calmed, it wasn’t raining.

Pawan had warned us to wear our down jackets, rain gear, and woolly caps. Warm and fed, we set off. The other Maharashtrian group had already left after shouting slogans to Ganesha some 40 mins earlier. We started at 8:40 am.

The trail began through the rocky valley on the far side of the lake – the same spot that had looked so pretty and sunlit yesterday, was a stark and grey story today. I focused on settling into a slow, steady rhythm. Each of us found our own pace, forming a stretched, uneven line between our two guides: Deepak leading, Pawan following. Ak stayed ahead with Deepak throughout.

Pretty sure it was beautiful, but I didn’t have much bandwidth to appreciate it. Plod, plod, plod. We were told the “summit” would take about four hours. Pawan had so far been spot-on about our timing.

For me it was a day of slow plodding. Steep. Uphill. Unrelenting. Sips of water. Heartbeat loud in my ear. Whenever I looked up at the winding path above, it almost made me dizzy. For a while, the trail followed a mountain stream – sparkling, gurgling, deceptively gentle. As with most such trails, we crossed and re-crossed it several times without thinking much of it. Little did I know it would stage its revenge on our way down.

For a while, Dodital and the view behind us were comforting, until we turned a corner and lost sight of the lake. Then it was just the stark, steep, rocky mountains. There was still green around – especially remember one dramatic patch of windswept rhododendron trees, and some other trees on the slopes around. Last night’s rain had left some thin patches of snow along the trail, and a dusting of white powder over the upper slopes.

Hard uphills like these are solitary affairs: just you and your thoughts. You’d better like your own company. Occasionally you pass a fellow trekker, exchange a breathless grunt or a grin, and keep going. When the lead guide calls for a break, you collapse, drink a sip of water, and pant. Then you learn – never sit down. It’s far easier to start again if you rest standing.

For all that, it was within my comfort zone, a familiar kind of strain. I was in the zone, and oddly enough, enjoying it.

About halfway up, Vinay decided to turn back – headache, an attack of altitude sickness. We shouted encouragement to Ram to keep coming.

The final stretch was the steepest yet, alternating between dust and mud. As I neared the top of the pass, the Maharashtrian group came down, most offering cheerful words of encouragement. Then one specimen paused above me to dispense unsolicited wisdom, man to woman:
“You should never wear cross-strap bags on treks!”
Ah yes, the mountain’s own fashion police, patrolling near 4000m. I grunted and trudged on, leaving him to his noble duty of saving womankind from ergonomic disaster.

I looked up and saw Ak, Ash, and Ashok silhouetted at the pass one after another. Snapped a few dramatic photos from my lower, suffering vantage point. By now I was counting steps before pausing. One – two – three – pause. Repeat. 15 more minutes of this survival math took me to Dharwa pass at last.

Ak was waiting proudly, and we hugged like victorious mountaineers (never mind that I was panting like a dog). To the right of the pass was a mini peak – and I reluctantly made one final push to get to the top of it. Dharwa Top (4100 m) was yet further up, but this was it for me, this fake peak. I am claiming 4000 m! Fake or not, the altitude felt entirely real.

We cheered Ram up to our fake summit, and took a few more photos in that cold, hostile, windy pass. The views weren’t spectacular; it was more the satisfaction of having earned them that mattered. After ten minutes of feeling heroic, it was time to descend. My head was starting to feel heavy – not yet a headache, but definitely a warning.

Going downhill meant a full-body negotiation with gravity – sliding and slithering down the mud and dust. Tiredness and a need to stay laser-focused just to keep my footing – a tricky combination. It was lunchtime, but no one felt like stopping. After about an hour of descent, Ak and the Ashes finally paused to eat. I gulped my Frooti, peeled my orange, and kept moving. Ak and I stayed close together, not far from the Ashes, while Pawan accompanied Ram at the rear.

Links to 2 tracked activities for this day: the ascent, the descent.

Side note: our canine companion, Nikki-boo, had deserted us completely today. Later we found her back at Dodital, loyally attached to the other group who’d climbed earlier. The traitor.

It felt like ages of bare brown and black mountain before Dodital finally appeared – still far below, but a welcome sight. Eventually we reached the stream and crossed it a couple of times. Then Ak, scouting ahead, took a higher path, came back, and announced that it seemed a dead end. And that was the moment we officially got ourselves lost.

We blundered back and forth, crossing the stream approximately 53 times – give or take a few wet shoes. Everyone managed to slip into the water at least once. I outdid them all by going in completely, landing squarely in the stream. Shoes squelching, trousers soaked to the hips—but thankfully it wasn’t freezing, or maybe we were generating enough body heat to qualify as mildly radioactive.

We kept trudging and scrambling until, at one point, I refused to climb another absurdly steep slope someone claimed was “the way.” Instead, I clambered over some rocks in the stream and, miraculously, found myself in the familiar rocky valley that led back to Dodital. Salvation by stubbornness (or stupidity).

Keeping within shouting distance of the others, I made my way across the stones to see where their path would come out. They appeared soon after, just as a passing guide, not of our party, pointed us to the non-obvious trail among the stones.

Another twenty mins of trudging on the stony track, a small climb over a hump beside the lake, and we rolled into camp, soaked and triumphant. Three hours for the descent.

Vinay was waiting, anxiety etched across his face, realizing Ram was still an hour or so behind. First order of business: change out of wet things. Next: hot chai and freshly fried potatoes (with chaat masala!) to restore body and soul. Only after that did I feel human enough to join Vinay and the Ashes to watch out for Ram (Ak went for a nap).

By and by, we spotted him approaching, and cheered him into camp. Hats off to his resilience and grit; he still had the strength to raise a fist and smile.

The cook outdid himself that night: dinner was Indian-Chinese fried rice, gobi Manchurian, and gulab jamun. Yummm.

The evening stayed grey and mildly drizzly. Before and after dinner, we gathered around the smoky fire (green wood, naturally), dodging sparks every few minutes.

Smoky or not, we really needed that campfire tonight. Within the camp’s boundaries stood a large open metal pergola frame, and that’s where our campfire was built. We hung damp clothes over its frame and arranged our shoes around the logs, hopeful they’d dry once the fire caught. (Didn’t quite work out for me – seeing the drizzle persist, I packed everything wet, only to unpack it still wet two days later in Amsterdam. Washed and dried twice, couldn’t erase that smoky scent – accepting “mountain smoke” as a souvenir of the trip.) Tired, satisfied, half-warmed, and ready for bed.