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Travelling solo for an Indian girl is still a taboo in most Indian households. No surprises here, when I asked my father if I could go on a trek, the immediate reflex was a big fat no. It took me a lot of convincing and buttering to get him to agree on me taking this trip. I flew to Delhi and then took a bus to Shimla, the capital city of Himachal Pradesh. They picked us up in small van's from the Shimla and drove us to Janglik which was our base camp for the trek. Later, we had to take a diversion since there was a bridge that broke down on the way, blocking the connecting path to Janglik. Until the trail was straight, I was okay carrying myself and my 12kg bag. Right when we were say about 10 minuets from the guest house there was a steep climb. Clearly, I was really bad at it given my bag was really heavy. I thought to myself, what the fuck have I signed up for, if this is going to be the same, I'm never going to make it. The next morning, we were all up and ready to start the day, we went to two campsties in the next two days, dayara and Litham After the second day at Litham we were all set to reach our highest base camp called Dunda which was 12650 feet. The view was mesmerising! One could stand on the snow looking back to the lush greens and the river streams and looking forward to the final sumit! We spent the evening in Dunda, learning the tips and tricks of waking on snow in steep slopes and using micros pikes. We started early morning at 3am. I got out of the tent, my heart racing at double the normal speed, with butterflies in my stomach I sipped my tea. I was still doubtful about whether I could make it up the pass. It was 15000 feet high and at an angle of about 70 degrees on snow. There was no turning back now. I didn't know what was going to happen, what I was going to encounter but I knew that this was it, I'd signed up for it and now I had no choice We had our head torches on, with our walking sticks and 3 layers of warm clothing, we set out to conquer the pass. To be honest, it did feel like I was going to war, only this time with myself. There was a moment, after we climbed up the first hill and were resting, when it was completely silent, all I could hear was the wind and the sound of my own breathing. And all I could see was a few stars and a bright moon in the sky and the snow shining on the ground. This was the start to my leap into the unknown, I didn't know this world was so beautiful and life clearly did surprise me. After 5 long hours of walking towards the pass, cutting through the snow, we finally summited at around 7:30 in the morning. That moment was so overwhelming, that I almost had tears in my eyes. 3 days ago I was doubting my own abilities to be able to complete it, and now there I was, 15000 feet high, staring right into the eyes of my fears and watching them go away! Now was the fun part, we did climb up at 70 degrees but we had to get down at 90 degrees, I'd rather say, rappel down a 100 meter snow wall! We then trekked down to our last base camp, Munira.I got out of my tent at 10pm to find a sky full of stars, staring right at me. I found a rock and layed down to star gase. I was so starstruck, literally that I ended up on that rock till 3am, yes I saw one little bit of the milky way and it just reminded me of how small and insignificant I am in this universe. This was my big leap into the unknown, the unexplored side of me being able to climb up so high, the unexpected clear skies with the stars and me, just me.