Ganesh Bahadur Karki “A walk in nature walks the soul back home.” On July 20, 2019 Saturday, Squad C hike was organized. This was my 2nd hike from Deerwalk and an opportunity to meet new deerwalkers. All the hikers from various squads gathered at Deerwalk Complex at around 7:30 am filled with excitement. We left the Deerwalk premises and started our journey to Jharsing Pauwa, Sankhu our hike destination. We reached to Jharsing Pauwa at around 10:00 am. We had some light breakfast and started our hike at 10:30 am. Walking for approx 15 minutes on the gravelled trail and we reached a point where we were left with two choices, first boring and easy, and second adventurous (adventurous because none of the hikers were familiar with that trail and we didn’t know what it would offer). And obviously, we chose the difficult one, the jungle route because ‘difficult roads often lead to the most astonishing paths’. Going through the way of the forest was not easy. The night before it was raining, due to which the ground was wet in the forest. We were into the wild, with parasites ready to hop on us. All of us were moving forward and we lost our ways quite a few times,made our own trails and to be honest we actually lived our moment. Everyone was into the hike talking-walking and people started slipping because of the slippery wet leaves that jungle offered and some people fell down as well(**painful**). We walked out of the jungle after about 45 minutes. Then, we rested for a while had a quick snack break and we made sure to click some more fun pictures. The weather was not favorable when we made it out of the jungle. This time, we realized how much afforestation is important to us despite all the blood sucking creatures. Anyway, the sun was up and we were ready to walk our ways. We hiked uphill determined to reach our destination “Nagarkot”. We conquered all the difficult trails and were finally on the correct trail as per the GPS. Now, the weather was in our favour, drizzling and foggy. We were quite exhausted by this time but we saw landmark imprinted ‘Nagarkot 4kms’, and headed up to our destination with much talking and we met many children on our way and distributed Deerwalk’s textbooks and stationery. We were closer to our destination and clicked as many pictures as we could. Walk>>Click>>Repeat Finally, after walking 31,000 steps and 19kms at around 4:30 pm, we reached Nagarkot Buspark and had our late typical Nepali ‘Dal bhat’ lunch. And at around 5pm we headed back to kathmandu with tired body and refueled soul and memories. 

Sangita Nepal Our hike destination was set from Jaharsingh Pauwa to Nagarkot. Being a nature lover, hiking always intrigued me and I was really excited about our hike. Besides that, hiking has several benefits as well. It improves mood and enhances our wellbeing as well as gives an opportunity to bond with colleagues and friends. It was a gloomy weather in the morning at 7 AM ( 20 July 2019). We all eleven of us, gathered at Deerwalk premises to start our day. We left Deerwalk premises at 7:30 AM in mini-bus. Road condition was good upto Chabahil. From there upto Sankhu, the road was muddy due to rainfall the previous night. From Sankhu, we started uphill ride to Jaharsingh Pauwa. Roads were not better on uphill ride as well. We reached Jaharsingh Pauwa at 9:30 AM. After reaching there, since we all were hungry, we went to Maya’s Cafe (a local cafe in Jaharsingh Pauwa) to have breakfast which was chana fried, Sel and black tea. This breakfast gave us energy to start our hike to Nagarkot. Our hike started at around 10 AM. Finding hiking trail was quite tricky since nobody among us knew the exact route. Using google maps, we continued with our hike. After half an hour on our hike, we entered a forest. With an assumption that we are on the right track, we continued our hike on the forest. After about half an hour on entering the forest, we took a rest for about 10 minutes. Then upon continuing, we did not find any proper trail. Since, it was the rainy season, the trail was slippery. We were enjoying tour walk on the forest, singing and making fun about each other. There were leaves all over the ground that had fallen from the trees. We were enjoying nature, but slippery ground made it difficult to walk and many of us slipped a few times on the ground. We were finding it difficult to trace the exact path to our destination, and hence upon following our instinct, we reached the end of the jungle in about an hour. We had missed the easier path to our destination, but we were happy since now we knew which path to follow. Upon asking local people around there, we came to know that it would take around one and a half hour to reach the destination. The Sun was at its peak, which made us feel drained. We took a rest for some time and continued on our way towards the destination. The path was now through local villages of Sankhu, it was easier because we could ask local people about the exact path. We had carried some snacks and enough water for each of us. We got to know the local life there, interacted with few children who were playing. We also gave them notebooks and pencils, they seemed really joyful. Umbrella was our saviour from the hot weather at midday. Most of the people in that locality had cows and goats in their homes. We interacted with them about their daily life and lifestyle. Finally we reached Nagarkot at around 2:30 PM. We searched for a proper restaurant to have lunch and rest for a while. Rest room facility was nice there. We ordered thakali khana set. This was a joyous moment for each of us since we completed our hike. We rested for half an hour. In this time, we shared photos of each other that we had taken from our own mobiles and enjoyed the view from Nagarkot. Finally our food arrived, and everyone was busy eating. Our mini-bus had also arrived at Nagarkot. We then took a rest for some time and rode in the mini-bus to return to our respective residence.