STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: As a Round Square member school, KC Public School is fully committed to inculcating the spirit of adventure among its students because adventure is among six ideals of Round Square movement uniformly followed by 180 member schools spread all over the world.
The school has a strong tradition of promoting adventure among its students through International Award for Young People (IAYP) Programme under which they aspire for Bronze, Silver and Gold Awards every year. This programme is approved by Round Square as an ideal channel for organised adventure activities.
The summer trek to Kareri region in Kangra District of Himachal Pradesh from 5th to 8th June was an effort by KCPS to offer its students the opportunity to undertake an arduous adventure journey and thereby come to terms with their potential for meeting challenges and to connect with their inner strengths. The trekking group from classes 9 to 11 consisted of Sambhavi Gupta, Reha Krishan, Mitali Gupta, Prajwal Sharma, Anav Jain and Vinayak Trackrooas Silver Award aspirants and Saksham Gupta, Aditya Chib, Akshat Bhagotra, Shivam Gupta and Avneesh Pandoh as Bronze Award aspirants. Srishti Mahajan, Akshita Puri, Swayam Gupta, Divam Dubey and Anika Gandotra joined the trek for sheer adventure.
Teachers accompanying the group were Dr Ram Thakur, Academic Director, Sonia Thakur, Creative Head, Ajay Thappa, Senior IAYP Leader and Ms Kanchan, newly inducted IAYP Leader.
The group left Jammu on 5th June by school bus and reached Dharamshala in the afternoon. After spending the night there, they left next morning for the village of Kareri about 20 kilometers away. Kareri is the starting point of 20 KM long trek to a glacial lake which is extremely popular among Indian and foreign trekkers.
KCPS trekkers reached Kareri village at about 11:00 AM. and checked into the Forest Rest House for their stay of two nights. Kareri is a fairly large village at an altitude of about 5,000 ft and is surrounded by a dense Alpine forest of pine, rhododendron, oak and deodar. Students spent the rest of the day getting acclimatised and studying flora, fauna and life-style of local people.
On the morning of 7th June, they started their trek towards Kareri lake. The first four kilometers on a level road were easy. However, the next four kilometers starting from a bridge and passing through a dense forest were extremely steep and difficult. They reached their destination of a temporary settlement of Gaddi shepherds at an altitude of about 7,000 ft early in the afternoon.
After spending an hour at the spot, they descended to the bridge and walked the rest of the distance to Kareri at a brisk pace to catch up with late lunch. On 8th June, they left Kareri early in the morning.
Taking a short stop at Dharamshala to look at its world-famous Cricket Stadium, they reached Jammu early in the evening, fully satisfied with their outward-bound adventure trip.
