I went up alone. That was the point.
I'd been wanting a stretch of time where the only plan was to paint and see what came out of it — no schedule, no one to answer to about how the day went. Dharamkot felt right for that. It sits above McLeod Ganj, the kind of place where the walk up is part of the work, not just the way to get there.
There's a café 120 steps up a hill that I went back to most mornings. The coffee was good but that's not why I kept climbing. By the time you reach the top, the valley below is usually sitting under a layer of mist, like it hasn't decided whether to be visible yet. I'd sit there for an hour sometimes, not painting, just looking at it.
The retreat part of the trip was less structured than I expected, in a good way. I tried things I don't usually let myself try — different mediums, different approaches to the same view, a lot of work that didn't go anywhere and a little that did. Being alone meant nobody was watching the bad attempts, which made it easier to have them.
What stayed with me wasn't one single moment so much as the rhythm of it. Climb, sit, look, paint, climb down. The deodar trees holding the whole hillside together. The mist that never fully cleared, like it had nowhere else to be and no reason to hurry.
That's where The Deodar, Dhauladhar came from. Not the view exactly — the stillness underneath it.