I wasn’t particularly eager to either walk or ride a horse down 18 km of concrete sidewalk so I put my name on the list to go down by helicopter but they told me it would be an hour which here in India means 3 to 5 hours. I was too cold and miserable and it again started snowing so I decided to proceed carefully on foot. I’m glad I did because after about 45 minutes I was down 500 m in altitude, the sun was out, the temperature was rising and I could again feel my toes and fingers. The walk down was really great, the panoramas were breathtaking and I enjoyed chatting with a number of Hindus from various parts of India who were on the way up making their pilgrimage to Shivas highest temple. By the time I arrived at the bottom five hours later, I lamented that I hadn’t walked at an even more leisurely pace because the end came so abruptly.
