Sunday, October 2 2005 11:44 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The 16 km hill trek from Solang Valley to Beas Kund, where Ved Vyas is said to have written the Mahabharta in Himachal Pradesh played host to a rather unexpected group of visitors last week from a far-out town in Maharashtra.

It is fairly commonplace for a group of trekking enthusiasts to spend vacations staking claim at the 12,500-meter summit. But this time those climbing the river crossing and the rope-grappling were an assorted bunch of handicapped between 10-76 years with disabilities ranging from blindness to lameness.

Organised by Ajinkya Adventure Group based in Akola Maharashtra, the group of 45 disabled and strong-hearted trekkers took five days and months of training including yoga, swimming and climbing to scale the peak and most importantly their own handicaps.

"It was for the first time that a composite group of people with different disabilities participated in a trek such as this,"Dhananjay L Bhagat, the organiser of the group said adding, "the idea is to foster a spirit of understanding, that of team work between the group members so that each of them understand each others disability and grow to complement each other."

"When we touched the ice, it was exhilarating. We just thought to ourselves this is difficult, not impossible," Deepak, a visually challenged person says. Now, we say, "If there's something taller, we'd like to climb that as well," he adds.