Buran Ghati - Barua Pass Trek

Start your day early morning. If you are in smaller group, target the press vehicles which leaves around 5 in the morning to deliver newspaper. You can reach Rohru easily and conviniently. It will be a long drive to reach Janglik, but the thrilling roads and views of Himachal keeps you engaged before you reach Janglik, a beautiful village amidst the greens. We take the full advantage of trekking in a  smaller group and chose to stay in the local homestay. That gives us the priceless experience to live the rich local culture and make ourselves a part of it right from the go. Do visit the local typically constructed temple in Janglik.

Today we start our trek and as we walk towards our next destination, we are gifted by the pleasures of greens, but in varied shades. A typical Himalayan trek through the high rising conifers and small openings in the thick and thin forest, following up the Pabbar river. You cross few shepherd's hut on the way. 

Dayara is a beautiful expanse of loft green meadow in the valley encircled sparsely by conifers. The flock of sheeps grazing around with their shepherds and humps of mountains rising high on both the sides make it a picturesque location. Early in the season pre-monsoon, snow can add a different element of beauty to the sight.  It makes a perfect campsite.

We spend the rest of the day exploring the site and soaking in the view, through our eyes and camera. Do have  a conversation with the shepherds you meet. It will enlighten you a lot on their perspective of the world.

A short day today but a beautiful one. We start lazily and would like to reach our next campsite for lunch. We follow the Pabbar river with a constant view of the mighty Gunas pass ahead of us. A gentle traverse on the grassy mountain with mixed climb on the meadow through occasional forests and multiple stream crossing  brings us to the Litham thatch. 

Enjoy the rest of the day. This will be our campsite for the 2 nights and plays a very important role in the better acclimatization for successful crossing of the Barua Pass. 

Morning, we start our trek to explore the other valley on our left towards Chandranahan lake. Chandranahan is a lake system fed by glacier and underground spring water. Its a very pious place for the locals and legend has it that the local God of Rohru - Shikru Devta is supposed to have taken birth here. As per the rule, we are not supposed to venture closer to the lake with shoes or slippers, or anything leather.

The stream originating from the lake is a tributary of the Pabbar and also named Chandranahan nala. The trek up is a good one and early in May can have good amount of snow cover. Otherwise, its a walk up on a moderately rough terrain with occasional flat meadows, requiring to cross streams multiple times. Snow covers the lake, but if open, you can see upto 3 lakes, which are not too big or deep either. 

We return back to Litham for the day.

The penultimate day before the crossing of the pass tomorrow. The trek climbs up moderately to the base of the Buran pass where the two passes - Buran and Gunas pass offers you a tempting challenge to undertake. Behind your back, the view of the entire valley is a beauty !!  To your right on the other side of the mountain divide runs the Rupin valley and the trek to the Rupin Pass.

Early may can be difficult depending on the amount of snow. Its better to bank on the experience of the local guides on location to camp for the day so that pass crossing becomes easier and successful the next day.

Finally we have brought ourselves to the closest to our objective and today we face the challenge. All our previous days were meant to acclimatize ourselves to the maximum capacity and get in sync with the mountains. Today we tackle the steep climb to the top of the Buran Pass.

A steadily increasing intensity of climb up on snow takes us to the top. We reach in about 2 hours to the top. Rest and feel the place where you have trekked yourself to..  its amazing.

We start to descend the pass to the other side. Its steep and here comes the expertise of your trekking skills and the guide. We use our safety ice traction crampons, ice axes and rope to descend down the pass. Its a quick descend all the way down to the greens of Munirang

Today we end our beautiful trek. We start early as we are to reach Shimla. It takes about 3 hours of descend to get us to Barua Village and the roadhead.

From there, we can either go to Sangla, Chitkul or back to Shimla. Karcham is about 2 kilometers from Barua and from there you can get vehicles for further travel.