The Photograph Chandratal Wouldn’t Give Me
It began, appropriately enough, in the rain.
By the time we pulled away from Noida late on Thursday night, a light drizzle had begun to fall. Somewhere beyond the city lights, several hundred kilometres of highway and a formidable wall of mountains away, lay Chandratal. We were heading there hoping for the exact opposite of the weather that accompanied our departure: clear skies, a dark Himalayan night and, if luck favoured us, the Milky Way stretching above the mountains with a few Perseid meteors streaking through it.
The trip itself had begun, as many such trips do, with a conversation. Kaushik and I have travelled together on several photography trips, and we had been discussing the Perseid meteor shower and where we could photograph it. Chandratal seemed like an exciting possibility. A casual conversation between Kaushik and some of his colleagues then turned our photography plan into something larger, and before long we had a group.
Kaushik and I were the only photographers. Ankur and Rajeev were his colleagues, while Vandana had worked with them previously and had brought along her nephew, Shaan, her regular companion on several of her travels. Most of them already knew one another through work, while I only really knew Kaushik. That made me the relative outsider in the group, although I have never found it particularly difficult to settle into new company.
Our seventh traveller, Jitendra, never made it out of Delhi. He had developed a fever before departure and had spent the day hoping that some medication and rest might get him well enough to travel. It wasn’t to be. By the time we assembled at Kaushik’s house, it was clear that he was simply too unwell to undertake a journey into the high Himalayas. We were down to six before the Urbania had even left Noida, and the drizzle followed us as we began the long drive north.
Into the Monsoon
Our first halt came around midnight at the famous Gulshan Dhaba in Murthal, where everyone piled out for dinner. Everyone except me. I was following my intermittent fasting routine and, despite being at one of those places where eating is practically part of the experience, decided to maintain it. The others ate while I waited, after which we climbed back into the Urbania and continued north.
The next few hours passed in fragments. I would doze, wake to the lights of another town slipping past the window, fall asleep again and occasionally check where we had reached. At around five in the morning, we stopped just beyond Rupnagar in Punjab so Abhishek, our driver, could take a tea break. We were still roughly two hours from Mandi. I skipped the tea and food again and stepped outside for a few minutes.
Dawn was beginning to arrive, and with it came the first sight of the mountains in the distance. Until then, the journey had been one of highways, headlights, dhabas and intermittent sleep. Now, as the light strengthened, dark ridges began taking shape against the horizon. Soon the road itself began to climb and the landscape changed around us. Low monsoon clouds drifted across the tops of the mountains, sometimes wrapping themselves around entire ridge-lines before lifting enough to reveal them again.
There was another sight that repeatedly accompanied us along these early stretches of road: Kanwariyas. We passed them in groups, walking along the highway in their characteristic saffron, some carrying decorated kanwars, others simply keeping pace with their companions. What struck me was the range of ages. There were youngsters who looked as though they could walk all day without breaking stride, but there were also grey-haired men covering the same roads on foot. Some continued through the tunnels alongside traffic, their orange clothing appearing and disappearing in the headlights as vehicles passed them. Watching them walk kilometre after kilometre, I found myself thinking that faith really doesn’t have an age limit. We were sitting comfortably inside a vehicle complaining about the length of the drive while they simply kept walking.
The road itself was becoming increasingly impressive. We passed through tunnel after tunnel carved into the mountains, engineering on a scale that is easy to take for granted until you look at the rock surrounding you and consider what it must have taken to build a highway through this terrain. Emerging from one such tunnel, we encountered our first landslide scar. It was an old one, the debris already cleared and traffic flowing normally, but it was a reminder of the time of year in which we had chosen to travel.
By now the Beas was running alongside us, swollen by the monsoon. Water seemed to be appearing from every direction. Small waterfalls cascaded down the slopes, some little more than silver lines against the green mountainside, others carrying enough water to tumble noisily towards the river below. A steady drizzle continued to fall and the river itself looked powerful, brown and full, very different from the gentler mountain streams one might encounter at other times of the year.
Volvo buses from Delhi to Manali began appearing outside the eating joints along the highway. Their passengers would spill out into the rain, stretch their legs and immediately start taking selfies against the mountain backdrop. It was an amusingly familiar tourist ritual, playing out repeatedly as we passed.
At around 8:30 in the morning, traffic stopped inside another tunnel. This time the landslide wasn’t old. There had been a fresh slide beyond the exit and the road ahead was blocked. Engines were switched off and the tunnel became an involuntary parking lot. We waited there for almost an hour and a half, finally beginning to move again at around 9:50.
We had known before leaving Delhi that travelling through Himachal during the monsoon came with uncertainty. There had been warnings about landslides and unstable slopes, and Himachal has had more than its fair share of problems during heavy rains. I didn’t want that knowledge to dominate the journey, but sitting stationary inside a mountain because the road outside had been blocked by a landslide made those risks considerably less abstract.
Once we were moving again, the mountains seemed to close around us. We passed Bhuntar, and I remember being surprised by its scale. It was a substantial town nestled into the valley with the river running through it, houses climbing the surrounding slopes and even an airport somehow squeezed into the available space. Low clouds hung across the mountains all around it and, seen from the road, the entire town seemed tucked into a fold in the Himalayas.
The road continued alongside the swollen Beas. Waterfalls kept appearing, feeding the river from slopes above us, while the clouds dropped progressively lower. At one point, the distinction between mountain and cloud simply disappeared. We had spent the morning looking up at clouds drifting across the peaks; now the road had climbed high enough that we were driving through them. The monsoon had accompanied us from the moment we left Noida, and it was beginning to feel as though we were following it into the mountains.
The Sound of Water
By the time we reached Solang Valley Resort, water had become the soundtrack of the journey. The property sits with the river running around two sides of it and a waterfall immediately beside it, which meant there was almost nowhere you could go without hearing water. Step out of the room and there was a constant rush in the background. Walk into the gardens and it became louder. Go down towards the river and it turned into a roar.
These weren’t the gentle streams of summer. The monsoon had filled the rivers until they moved through the valley with tremendous force, while the waterfall beside the property added its own volume to the soundscape. There was something strangely calming about that continuous sound, even while the sheer amount of water around us was slightly awe-inspiring. By the following morning, it had already become part of the background, noticeable again only when I stepped onto the balcony or walked closer to the river.
A call back home that evening added another dimension to the weather around us. It had been pouring in Gurgaon all day as well. We had travelled hundreds of kilometres north and climbed into the Himalayas, yet the same monsoon seemed to stretch all the way from home to the swollen rivers and waterfalls surrounding us in Solang.
That evening we went for a short walk near the hotel. An old bridge crossed the river nearby, covered in colourful prayer flags, with the raging water beneath it and the waterfall feeding into it not far away. It was the sort of setting that made you stop every few metres simply because the view had changed again.
And, of course, I started looking for birds. I hadn’t carried any photography gear on what was meant to be a short evening walk, but that rarely stops me from looking. Near the river we spotted a White-capped Redstart, followed by a Yellow-breasted Greenfinch. Later I saw a Black Kite perched at the top of a tree, completely drenched by the rain, sitting there as though waiting for the weather to improve. Eventually it seemed to accept that the rain wasn’t going anywhere and took off.
I hadn’t photographed any of them, but those sightings were enough to make me want to head out properly with the camera the following morning.
Dinner that evening also began revealing more about the people I was travelling with. A post-dinner conversation somehow wandered into evolution versus intelligent design and stayed there far longer than anyone could reasonably have predicted. There were strong opinions on both sides and the discussion became lively, occasionally forceful, but remained good-natured. I had no intention of turning a trip to Chandratal into an examination of the origins of life, but the debate was useful in another way: it was one of the first occasions when I began seeing the personalities behind this group of colleagues.
Ankur was among the more expressive members of the group, fond of old Hindi music and equally fond of singing it. He was also prone to motion sickness and had come prepared with a rather unusual-looking pair of motion-sickness glasses, which became a familiar sight during some of the longer drives. Both he and Kaushik had experienced issues with altitude before, so conversations about acclimatisation, oxygen and whether medication might be necessary had begun well before we reached the higher elevations.
Rajeev was calmer. Back home were his seven-year-old twin boys, at least one of whom had apparently been ready to pack his own bags and abandon school when he realised where his father was going.
Vandana worked in HR and appeared to have a relationship with work that geographical distance did little to interrupt. Even in Solang, calls could stretch to one in the morning. It became one of those things you simply accepted: wherever Vandana happened to be, work was apparently capable of finding her. Shaan, her nephew, had travelled with her on several trips before and seemed perfectly accustomed to being part of the adventure.
Friday was still a working day for most of the group, so laptops appeared and calls were fitted around the journey and the mountains. I had taken the day off, which meant I could watch this activity from a comfortable distance. By the weekend, however, work largely receded and the trip properly took over.
By the time dinner and the long conversation ended, I was exhausted. I hadn’t really slept during the overnight journey apart from a few scattered winks in the Urbania. The others decided to go for a walk after their heavy dinner. Having eaten nothing because of my fasting routine and running almost entirely on accumulated tiredness, I retired for the night instead.
Our first day in the mountains was done.
A Clearer Morning
The next morning began around five, although “began” is perhaps too energetic a word for what we actually did. We woke early and then spent quite some time simply lying around the room gossiping.
Eventually, I put my phone outside to record a timelapse of the clouds moving through the valley. After the almost continuous rain of the previous day, the difference in the morning was immediately noticeable. The air felt remarkably clear. There were still plenty of clouds around, but patches of blue had appeared between them and every now and then the sun managed to peek through.
After being surrounded by rain from Delhi onwards, that blue sky felt particularly encouraging. We were still two days away from Chandratal, but every break in the clouds made us wonder whether the weather might finally be turning in our favour.
I had a quick bath, packed my bags and got everything ready to leave. Kaushik and the others were still getting themselves organised, so rather than sit around waiting I did what came naturally: I picked up the camera and went looking for birds.
The waterfall and river that had been background noise from the room became a roar again as I moved closer to the water. The short walk around the hotel proved surprisingly productive. A juvenile Bearded Vulture appeared, followed by an Ultramarine Flycatcher and a Plumbeous Water Redstart. It was a good little morning session, particularly considering that this was supposedly not a birding trip.
When we finally left Solang, the weather remained encouraging. We passed more waterfalls as we climbed away, and my last view before the road turned towards the Atal Tunnel was of distant mountain ranges with snow-covered peaks rising beyond them.
Then we entered the mountain.
The Atal Tunnel is an extraordinary piece of engineering. Running for 9.02 kilometres beneath the Pir Panjal range, it bypasses the old route over Rohtang Pass, shortening the road towards Lahaul by 46 kilometres and cutting several hours from the journey. We entered through the South Portal, marvelled at the thought of driving for more than nine kilometres through the heart of a mountain, and eventually emerged on the Lahaul side.
The landscape waiting outside was already beginning to feel different, and so was the weather. For the first time since leaving Delhi, the rain had genuinely loosened its grip.
Koksar and Our First Dark Sky
Koksar would be home for the next two nights, an intentional pause in the itinerary before we climbed higher towards Chandratal. Solang had placed us at around 2,350 metres; Koksar took us to roughly 3,140 metres, while Chandratal would eventually take us beyond 4,000. The two nights here weren’t simply a convenient stop. They were meant to give our bodies time to adjust.
Our hotel had a swing positioned near the edge of the property, facing the river below and the mountains across the valley. It was impossible to resist. One by one, everyone took a turn, the sort of simple group activity that becomes considerably more entertaining when you’re surrounded by scenery like that.
Lunch was equally uncomplicated: dal, rice and chicken. We spent much of the afternoon settling in, relaxing and allowing our bodies to get used to the altitude. By evening we were ready for a walk and wandered down to a local dhaba where some of the group ordered Maggi, that unofficial staple of practically every Indian mountain holiday.
Once the sun went down, the trip finally began delivering what Kaushik and I had come looking for. Koksar sits beneath genuinely dark skies, and once night settled over the valley, the number of stars visible overhead was extraordinary. Away from the light pollution of Delhi, the sky seemed crowded with them.
We carried our cameras and tripods down the road and began setting up, only to discover that darkness alone doesn’t guarantee a perfect astrophotography location. Large mountains rose directly in front of us and obscured much of the Galactic Core. We were also beside the highway, which meant every passing vehicle had the potential to send headlights through an exposure that had been running perfectly for several seconds.
Still, we worked around it. The Milky Way began appearing on the backs of our cameras and, despite the compromised location, we came away with some good photographs. We even managed to catch a meteor or two.
The others had followed us, initially simply to experience the sky, but soon phones began appearing. Kaushik and I started showing them how they could attempt Milky Way photographs without dedicated cameras: how to steady the phone, use longer exposures where possible and avoid contaminating the scene with unnecessary light. Their reactions when the stars began appearing on their own screens were wonderful. Only Kaushik and I had come as photographers, but for a little while everyone was trying to become one.
The night, unfortunately, had another turn waiting for us. Once we were back in our rooms, Kaushik’s pulse oximeter began showing readings that concerned us. He had experienced altitude sickness before, which was one of the reasons we had carried portable oxygen cylinders. Until then, those cylinders had simply been part of our preparation. That night, we needed them.
Much of the night was spent keeping an eye on him, using the portable oxygen and making sure his condition didn’t deteriorate further. By morning, continuing the journey could no longer be treated as an automatic decision.
He had several choices. He could descend to a lower elevation and wait while the rest of us completed the Chandratal circuit. He could arrange a separate vehicle and return to Delhi. Or we could try to source a proper oxygen cylinder with continuous flow, give him another day in Koksar and see whether his body acclimatised.
After considerable discussion, we decided to try the third option. We managed to arrange a cylinder, and Kaushik decided to stay.
A Day to Acclimatise
The irony was that while we were dealing with our first serious altitude issue, the weather outside had become almost perfect. The morning was beautifully clear, with deep blue skies and very few clouds. The sun was surprisingly hot, but a cold wind blew steadily through the valley and made sitting outside pleasant. The few clouds that remained would occasionally roll over the tops of the mountains, spilling across the ridges in slow motion. After days of watching the monsoon dominate the landscape, we finally seemed to have left it behind.
By noon, Kaushik’s oxygen cylinder arrived and we got him set up so he could finally catch up on some much-needed rest. The rest of us spent the day doing exactly what an acclimatisation day demanded: very little. We sat outside in the shade and talked about our backgrounds, our work and whatever else came up. Some people took an afternoon siesta. I read a book. After the movement of the previous two days, it was pleasant to have nowhere in particular to be.
I did, naturally, keep looking for birds. Koksar wasn’t easy. The landscape around us was a huge rocky expanse and anything small disappeared into it remarkably effectively. There were pigeons, obviously. Rats of the sky appear to have conquered every altitude. A large flock of Red-billed Choughs flew high above the mountains, and at one point an eagle soared even higher than them, far too distant for me to identify. I repeatedly heard small birds calling from the fields around the hotel and, despite spending a fair amount of time looking, never managed to identify them. I did, however, manage to find and photograph a Long-tailed Shrike.
By evening, Kaushik’s condition had noticeably improved and he felt well enough for us to venture out. We decided to head towards nearby Sissu.
Sissu, Waterfalls and a Change of Perspective
Sissu had an unexpectedly festive atmosphere when we arrived. The vehicle parking was around the edge of a helipad and there were people everywhere. Multicoloured flags fluttered around the area, small food stalls had sprung up beside the road and operators had set up zip lines across the raging Chandra River.
Across the river, Sissu Falls came crashing down the mountainside. The only obvious way we could see to get closer involved taking one of those zip lines across the river and then climbing up the hill towards the waterfall. Vandana, Ankur, Rajeev and Shaan decided to go. Kaushik, wisely, decided that a steep climb at altitude was probably not the best way to test his improving health.
I stayed back with him, which also meant I had a perfect view as the other four launched themselves one by one across the river and naturally resulted in me photographing all of them.
The setting itself was spectacular. Green mountains towered above us, the river raged through the valley below and the waterfall thundered down the opposite slope. Yet alongside all that raw landscape were flags, food stalls, tourists wandering around and people flying across the river on zip lines. Somehow it all worked.
Standing there, looking up at those mountains, I was struck again by their sheer scale. The Himalayas have a way of making human time feel rather insignificant. These mountains were ancient long before any of us arrived, and they will remain long after we are gone. For a few minutes, beneath all that rock and sky, our own concerns seemed very small.
Once the others returned, we piled back into the Urbania and headed towards Koksar. Rather than go straight to the hotel, we continued a few kilometres beyond it to scout for a possible Milky Way location for that night.
We found a gorgeous bend in the river, flowing between two mountains with snow-covered peaks visible in the distance. Everyone got out and we spent some time photographing it. Visually, it was exactly the sort of landscape you would want beneath the Milky Way. Photographically, however, it didn’t work. The curve of the road and the direction in which we would need to shoot simply didn’t align with the position of the Galactic Core, so we returned to the hotel.
Finding the Shot
Tea and refreshments inevitably turned into another gossip session, and by the time the sun began dropping, Kaushik and I started getting our camera equipment ready again.
Initially, we went back to the same location we had used the previous night. While we were setting up, a couple of locals passed us on a motorcycle and suggested that we try farther up the road in the opposite direction. They also repeatedly advised us to come out much later at night because it would be darker then. We thanked them. Explaining that darkness was only one part of the equation, and that the Galactic Core would have moved out of the position we needed by then, seemed unnecessarily complicated.
Their advice about the location, however, was excellent. The road curved around the mountain in that direction, shielding us from much of the light coming from the hotel and nearby eateries. The mountains still constrained us, but the change in orientation completely altered the photograph. Instead of trying to capture the Milky Way rising vertically behind a mountain, I could now compose it stretching across the sky overhead.
That changed everything, and I came away with some of my favourite photographs of the trip.
The rest of the group had trooped along again, partly to experience the sky and partly to practise the tricks they had learnt the previous night. By now Vandana and Rajeev were even talking about wanting to learn more about photography from Kaushik.
It was interesting to watch the group evolve. A few days earlier I had joined what was largely an existing circle of colleagues. Now we were all standing beside a dark mountain road together, passing phones around, comparing photographs and looking up at the same sky.
We eventually headed back to the hotel, where the evening once again ended with everyone gathered in one room talking far later than planned. We finally went to bed around 12:15. The next morning we would finally leave for Chandratal.
Calling It a Road Would Be Generous
The Urbania stayed behind at Koksar. From this point onwards, we split ourselves between two Innova Crystas, vehicles better suited to what lay ahead. For perhaps the first forty minutes, the road remained surprisingly good.
Then it effectively disappeared.
For the next four or five hours, we travelled along an unpaved track cut into the mountains. Calling it a road would be generous. The Crystas bounced, lurched and shook continuously, throwing us around inside the cabin as they negotiated rock, mud and uneven ground.
The air outside had become wonderfully cool and we would happily have kept the windows open, but the dust made that impossible. So we sat with the windows shut, being shaken from side to side while staring at one of the most beautiful landscapes of the trip. The discomfort and the beauty existed as two completely separate experiences.
Outside, mountains rose on both sides of the valley while the river wound below us. Waterfalls were everywhere. Some were little rivulets threading their way down the rock, while others came crashing off the mountainside before feeding the river below. The whole terrain seemed to be draining into the valley.
We stopped at one of the first larger waterfalls simply because nobody wanted to drive past it. The water was painfully cold, probably fed by snow and glacial melt higher in the mountains, but that didn’t stop us from splashing around and taking photographs.
At another, the volume of water made standing beneath it impractical, so I did something more sensible and took out the camera. The falling water was perfect for long exposures, allowing me to turn the torrent into soft white streaks against the dark rocks.
And through all of this, my birding radar remained switched on. Choughs flew overhead. At one of the waterfalls, I spotted another White-capped Redstart. Several small brown birds flashed past as we drove, but the road simply wasn’t suitable for repeatedly stopping, and this wasn’t a birding expedition. I tried very hard not to become that person who asks an entire group to halt every two minutes because something small and feathered has disappeared behind a rock.
Occasionally we stopped simply because the landscape demanded it. At one viewpoint, a small Buddhist prayer structure stood on the ridge overlooking the valley, the sort of structure that appears unexpectedly across Himalayan passes and high roads. From there, mountains filled the horizon and the river ran far below, the slopes an extraordinary mixture of green vegetation and exposed rock.
Then we reached Chhatru. The old bridge there crossed the turbid Chandra River, prayer flags strung across it and fluttering above the water. Small eateries and a campsite sat beside the river, and our drivers decided this was a good place for lunch. The rest of us spent the break wandering around the bridge, photographing the landscape and, inevitably, taking far too many group pictures.
Once we left Chhatru, the landscape began changing again. The green slowly retreated, the mountains became more barren and rocky, and snow-covered peaks appeared in the distance with cotton-candy clouds rolling over them. The scenery was beginning to take on the stark character of the high-altitude Himalayas.
Then, around a bend, we saw the sign we had been waiting for: Welcome to Chandratal Wildlife
Sanctuary.
The road divided here, one direction leading towards Kaza via Kunzum Pass while ours continued towards Chandratal. After days of talking about it, we were finally there.
Moonlake Camps
Soon, clusters of tents began appearing across the high-altitude landscape and one of them was Moonlake Camps, where we would spend our single night at Chandratal. After several hours of being thrown around inside the Crystas, simply getting out felt good. We began unloading our bags, tripods and camera equipment, including the birding lens that I had continued to carry in the hope that it might eventually prove useful.
The tents were considerably more comfortable than I had expected at that altitude, with attached toilets and running water that felt positively luxurious considering where we were. Electricity, however, was limited. There was no regular power supply and while solar energy was used for some of the hot-water requirements, a diesel generator would be switched on only for a few hours in the evening, roughly from seven until ten. After that, the camp would have virtually no artificial light, which for two people who had travelled there to photograph the night sky sounded rather promising.
The other thing that immediately caught our attention was a snow-covered peak rising directly behind our tents. Kaushik and I instinctively began looking at it differently from everyone else, not simply as part of the scenery but as a possible foreground for the photographs we hoped to make later that night. Based on the direction in which we expected the Milky Way to appear, the peak seemed perfectly positioned. After several days of travel, weather and uncertainty, we could finally begin to visualise the photograph that had originally brought us to Chandratal.
Before thinking too far ahead, though, we wanted to see the lake itself. We spoke to the people at camp and learnt that Chandratal was still another twenty or thirty minutes uphill by vehicle. There would be an entry point along the way where we would sign in and pay the required fee, after which the cars could continue to a parking area. From there, we would still need to walk roughly a kilometre to a kilometre and a half to reach the lake.
We had considered leaving the visit for the following morning, particularly since we had only just arrived after a long and tiring drive. Instead, almost as soon as we had settled into our tents, we decided that we had come too far to sit around with Chandratal barely a few kilometres away. We gathered what we needed, including the portable oxygen cylinders for Kaushik, climbed back into the Crystas and set off for the lake.
It would turn out to be one of the best decisions of the trip.
The First Glimpse of Chandratal
The drive towards the lake continued over much the same rough terrain that had battered us for the previous several hours, although excitement made this final stretch considerably easier to tolerate. We completed the formalities at the entry point and continued until the vehicles could go no farther, after which the final part of the journey would have to be made on foot.
At this altitude, a kilometre doesn’t behave like a kilometre does at home. The group naturally stretched out along the trail, sometimes separated by twenty or thirty metres. Vandana, Ankur and I were towards the front, while Kaushik took things more slowly behind us with Rajeev and Shaan keeping him company. Given what had happened at Koksar, none of us was taking chances. The portable oxygen cylinders had come with us and we continued keeping an eye on how he was doing as we walked.
The trail rose and dipped gently through the barren landscape until I saw a small hump ahead of me. I don’t know what made me think so, but I had a feeling that the lake would be on the other side. Before reaching the top, I pulled out my phone and started recording.
As I walked over the rise, the valley suddenly opened below me and there was Chandratal, stretched across the basin in an extraordinary shade of blue, nestled between barren mountains with clouds drifting above the ridgelines. After days of discussing it, planning around it and travelling towards it, there was something almost startling about finally seeing the lake itself rather than another photograph of it.
We began descending towards the water and one of the first things I noticed was how carefully the visitor area had been managed. Signs repeatedly reminded people that this was an ecologically sensitive landscape and asked them not to litter. Benches had been provided along the route for visitors who needed to rest, particularly useful at this altitude, and rubbish bins were available for people to dispose of waste responsibly. It was encouraging to see because places like Chandratal remain beautiful precisely because they are relatively untouched. Anyone fortunate enough to visit has a responsibility to help keep them that way.
As I continued down towards the lake, I noticed a small rivulet running through the landscape and then, almost immediately, movement beside it. There were birds along the water, and suddenly carrying the 600mm on the walk seemed like a very good decision.
When Chandratal Had to Wait
Until then, I had been walking with my wide-angle lens mounted because the lake and surrounding landscape were obviously going to be the photographic priority. The sight of birds beside the rivulet changed those priorities rather quickly. I found somewhere to sit, took off the wide-angle and mounted the 600mm just as the others began catching up with me.
I told them to carry on towards the lake and that I would join them shortly. Then, for the next little while, I happily disappeared into my own world.
Black-headed Mountain Finches and Plain Mountain Finches were moving through the area, while Citrine Wagtails, mostly juveniles, worked the edges of the water. Green Sandpipers appeared beside the rivulet as well. Considering that I had brought the birding lens on what was primarily an astrophotography trip simply because I knew there was always a chance that the mountains might offer something unexpected, I felt thoroughly vindicated. There was also something rather amusing about sitting beside a stream photographing birds while one of the most beautiful lakes in the Himalayas waited a little farther down the trail. Bird photography has a way of rearranging priorities.
Eventually, satisfied with what I had managed to photograph, I switched back to the wide-angle and joined everyone beside the lake. We took photographs and videos of the water, mountains and clouds, using both cameras and phones, but after a while we stopped trying to document everything and simply sat down to enjoy where we were.
Some people wandered farther ahead. Rajeev went exploring and Shaan roamed around as well, while the rest of us were content to stay where we were and take in the landscape. Kaushik occasionally needed some oxygen from the portable canister and we continued monitoring his saturation, but otherwise there was no particular agenda. We had finally reached Chandratal and, for a while, there was nowhere else we needed to be.
I set my phone up to record a timelapse and left it running for around forty minutes while we sat beside the lake. At the time, I simply wanted to capture the clouds moving above the mountains. Instead, the phone ended up recording the beginning of the next chapter of our day.
The Monsoon Catches Up
Grey clouds had begun gathering over the mountains beyond Chandratal. Initially, none of us thought too much of them because mountain weather changes quickly and, after the previous few days, we had become accustomed to watching clouds appear and disappear across the ridgelines. These clouds, however, weren’t disappearing. They were gradually becoming darker and moving towards us.
The timelapse recorded the transformation beautifully, with grey cloud spilling over the mountain tops and steadily consuming more of the sky. We continued sitting for a while and watched it happen, perhaps still hoping that this was another passing mountain shower, but after spending around an hour or an hour and a half beside the lake it became increasingly obvious that the weather was changing properly. The vehicles were still a substantial walk away, so we decided that it was probably time to leave.
As we climbed back towards the parking area, we kept turning around to look at the mountains behind us. Each time, the clouds seemed closer. Eventually, we could see rain falling in the distance, hanging beneath the clouds like a grey curtain and moving through the valley in our direction.
For most of the walk, it somehow stayed behind us. We kept moving while the rain followed, occasionally looking back to judge how quickly it was gaining. Remarkably, we made it almost all the way to the parking area before it finally caught us. Just as we reached the cars, the rain began falling heavily.
The monsoon that had drizzled over our departure from Noida, followed us beside the swollen Beas, surrounded us with waterfalls in Solang and briefly seemed to release us beneath the blue skies of Lahaul had found us again at Chandratal.
Then we turned around and saw the rainbow.
It stretched across the valley in front of us and seemed astonishingly close, almost as though it were rising directly from the landscape. Behind it were dark grey clouds and mountains, while around us the wind had picked up and rain was falling steadily. Getting into the cars would have been the sensible thing to do, but nobody seemed particularly interested in being sensible anymore. Cameras and phones came out and we stood in the rain trying to photograph what was unfolding in front of us.
A few minutes later, a second rainbow appeared above the first. There we were, six increasingly wet travellers standing at over 4,000 metres, staring at a double rainbow across the mountains of Chandratal and trying to photograph it from every possible angle. Earlier, we had debated whether to visit the lake that afternoon or wait until the following morning. At that moment, we were extremely pleased that impatience had won.
We didn’t yet know how important that decision would turn out to be.
The Night We Had Come For
By the time we returned to Moonlake Camps, the rain and clouds had settled across the landscape. The generator came on after sunset and, for a few hours, the camp had electricity. We had dinner, charged whatever needed charging and waited for the generator to be switched off, an unusual situation in which losing electricity was something we were actively looking forward to.
Once the generator stopped, the camp would become almost completely dark. There was no city glow, no neighbouring hotel throwing light into the sky and very little artificial illumination anywhere around us. The snow-covered peak behind our tents was already waiting as a foreground and, after the success we had enjoyed at Koksar, Kaushik and I were eager to see what Chandratal’s skies might offer.
There was only one problem. By the time the generator went off, the sky had disappeared.
The clouds that had chased us away from the lake had spread across everything. The snow-covered peak behind our tents was no longer visible and neither were the stars. Every now and then a few would twinkle through a temporary gap and raise our hopes, only for the clouds to close again.
Eventually, I went to bed, but sleep did little to extinguish the hope that the weather might change. I woke several times through the night and stepped outside to check. Around one in the morning the clouds were still there. I tried again later, perhaps around three, but nothing had changed. The sky we had travelled all this way to photograph remained stubbornly hidden.
At the same time, we were continuing to keep an eye on Kaushik. His oxygen levels had deteriorated again during the night and he needed the proper oxygen setup rather than the portable canisters. Fortunately, after what had happened in Koksar, we were prepared and could keep him on continuous oxygen while monitoring how he was doing.
Photographically, though, there was nothing we could do. The photograph that had originally driven the entire trip, the Milky Way stretching above the snow-covered mountains at Chandratal with perhaps a Perseid meteor crossing the frame, wasn’t going to happen.
There was disappointment, of course. It would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. Yet it was difficult to feel that Chandratal had somehow let us down. We had photographed the Milky Way on both nights at Koksar and even captured meteors. We had seen Chandratal beneath beautiful skies, photographed birds beside its streams and watched a storm cross the mountains before standing in the rain beneath a double rainbow.
The same monsoon that had finally denied us the night sky had given us some of the most memorable sights of the journey.
One Last Morning
When morning arrived, clouds still hung over the landscape and there seemed little point making the journey back to Chandratal. Once again, we found ourselves grateful that we had chosen to visit the lake the previous afternoon. Had we waited, the experience we had enjoyed there, including that extraordinary rainbow at the end, would simply never have happened.
Everyone else turned their attention towards breakfast and packing while I picked up the 600mm and went for one last wander around the campsite. The landscape around us was rocky, broken occasionally by little streams and patches of open ground, and it didn’t take long before the birds started appearing.
Citrine Wagtails were moving around the water, White Wagtails worked the open ground and a Black Redstart appeared among the rocks. I found a Common Hoopoe and then a Black-winged Snowfinch, particularly satisfying after the relative lack of bird activity I had encountered around Koksar. It was turning into an unexpectedly productive final morning.
Then I found a Horned Lark.
It was a lifer for me, and suddenly breakfast, packing and the long journey ahead became considerably less urgent. I spent the next few minutes watching and photographing it among the rocks, delighted that Chandratal had managed to produce one final surprise before we left.
Soon, everything would be loaded back into the Crystas and we would begin the long journey towards Koksar and eventually Delhi. The clouds had denied us the photograph we had imagined making at Chandratal, and I knew there would always be a little disappointment attached to that. Yet when I thought back over the previous few days, disappointment was hardly the emotion that defined the trip.
We had watched the Himalayas emerge from the darkness at dawn while Kanwariyas walked the same roads beside us. We had followed swollen rivers into the mountains, driven through monsoon clouds and waited for landslides to clear. We had photographed the Milky Way beneath the skies of Koksar and watched meteors cross our frames. We had endured roads that barely deserved the name, finally seen the blue waters of Chandratal appear below us and then watched a storm roll across the mountains before standing beneath a double rainbow. There had been birds, unexpected conversations, late-night gossip and plenty of moments that none of us could have planned when we left Delhi.
The trip Kaushik and I had originally imagined had been built around a photograph. The trip we actually experienced turned out to contain considerably more than that photograph ever could.
There would be other dark skies and other opportunities to photograph the Milky Way. I hoped there would even be another chance to return to Chandratal and finally make the image that the clouds had denied us.
For now, though, I was leaving with photographs I loved, a lifer I hadn’t expected and memories of a journey that had rarely gone exactly according to plan.
As consolation prizes went, I couldn’t really complain.
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