02-Sep-2017, 1725 hours:

Am back in the Support and Editorial seat for a bit and it feels odd. It feels odd because Abhishek and Ameen are off on The Mountain Walker’s second mid-haul trek – one that we had planned last year – and I am sitting here in Pune. Can imagine how Ameen felt when he missed our first Spiti trip last July.

This time around they are undertaking the Pin-Parvati Trek with a small group of three who have signed up – Sonam Samajpati, Swarjit Samajpati, and Isha Ray Samajpati. 

Abhishek and Ameen left from Shimla at 7:30 am this morning amidst rains to meet Sonam, Isha and Swarjit at Chandigarh Railway Station. After a quick pickup through very strict traffic police regulations, the team got onto the Baddi Road, headed towards Bilaspur through Swarghat. The initial road conditions were really bad, which caused a delay in lunch. 
The five of them had reached Bagi, Near Ghagas, Himachal Pradesh, when I got the last update from them. Here’s what Ameen says:

Knowing that we would be hungry soon, everyone kept eating chips, biscuits and chocolates. We didn’t want to stop anywhere in between, for our first stop was the Bahadur Dhaba at Bagi, near Ghagas. 

The moment we got down in front of the dhaba at 3:45 pm, we rushed to wash our hands and face. We are now taking the refreshing break to the next level by dipping makki rotis into the yummy daal spread all over the plate, and adding kadi for that extra punch. We’ll head out towards Kasol after lunch, with a plan to stop at Pandoh for tea. It’s another 3-4 hours journey ahead of us.