Making it to the bottom of the river valley took us a LITTLE longer than we were planning on!! It was now 2:30pm, when we expected to be on Binog by now!!!:) On our way to the base of Binog we passed this small little village and asked for a path to get us there, they pointed us in the correct direction and within 15 minutes we were on the base of Binog!! As seen in the picture on the base was this resort with a SWIMMING POOL!! It was cool to see such a random swimming pool, a NEATO one at that!!!:) I don't know how clean the water was, but definitely wanted to jump right in!! Even though it was around 50 degrees!! We reached the base of Binog at 2:45pm and asked one of the locals around how long it'd take to reach the peak!! He said about an hour, so that was nice to hear it was doable within an hour or so!! Now there were several paths that looked like it would take us to the top, again we asked the villagers which one was the best, they pointed to one and BAM we began our ascent!! The first half of the hike up was along goat paths and basically heading upward, so no real "official" path to follow!! Again, what do you expect with us by now!! Who needs nice and easy paths!!!:) At the first "fake" peak we find a real path for once, one with ARROWS guiding us in the wrong direction!! Well they point in the correct direction if we're heading down, but needless to see them told us we're good to go!! The last 300 feet up was through thick weeds and grass with no real path once again!! At this point we're at about 7,000ft, so similar to that of Mt. Hermon!! It was only a 7,400ft peak, BUT with a 350 degree view!! It would have been 350, but there were stupid trees for 10 degrees of it!!! We made it to the top and waiting for us was a lookout tower and a temple!! The time was 3:50pm!! Only 3 hours late of our hopeful arrival time!!:) Now our biggest concern was heading to civilization with SOME daylight still!! I say civilization meaning paved roads, if we got to that point with darkness just kicking in that'd be fine!! To travel on goat paths in the dark = not classy/good!!:) We spend about 15 minutes on the top eating linner (lunch/early dinner) and then begin our decent to the valley!! What took us 1hr 15 minutes to reach the top took maybe 30 to reach the valley!! So that was a plus, AND there was still a wee bit of sun left to guide our way to our original path to the little village!! Arriving at the village with almost no sun left anymore, we ask the locals what their path is to reach Happy Valley, cause as all experienced hikers know, where there is a village there is a path!! They have to walk on something!! So one of the villagers tells Suman where the path is and wouldn't you know it, it's the FREAKIN PATH WE SAW ON GOOGLE EARTH!!! And it's paved!! It was about a 1,000ft hike up the paved road and when we reached the top we were SOOOO annoyed!! When we descended earlier that day through the jungle, if we would have kept walking on that road maybe 50 more meters we would have hit that paved path, INSTEAD of bushwacking it down!! That easily would have saved us an hour or so!!! BUT what's a hike without some bushwacking and adventure!! I mean that would have been too easy I say!!;) Well it's about 7:30pm now, we stop at the Staff Mess one more time for some drinks (soda/pop) and then head back to Mussoorie!! On our way home we ate dinner at Clock Tower Cafe and showed Leroy some good CTC food!!! Walked through the buz and got home at 9:13pm!!! A nice 13 hour hike day!!!! AWESOME!!!!:) And that is how babies are born!!! Hope you enjoyed!!!!!;)
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