28th May, 2016 - 4th June, 2016
Amazing Awesome Extraordinary Marvelous Splendid Wonderful all adjectives combined cannot described the experience of our recent Himalayan trek to Roopkund and Junargali. Ranging from lush green meadows to mighty mountains to dense forests to spine chilling treks we had it all in a single trek.
This was our first high altitude Himalayan Trek, which was too good to forget and opens a golden highway for other treks.
We registered for trek with TTH two months before the trek date in a fast filling slot. TTH gave a pickup place and timing as 6:30 AM from Kathgodam Railway station.
Reaching Kathgodam itself became a good physical exercise when we had to take an over night semi-sleeper bus from Delhi to Haldwani and then auto from Haldwani to Kathgodam railway station.
Thanks to the bumpy roads and super sonic speed of bus, I wasn't able to sleep whole night, but reached Kathgodam at 5:00 AM.
Day 1: Kathgodam to Loharjung
After reaching Kathgodam we met few fellow trekkers with whom we shared cab from Kathgodam to Loharjung.
Not sure if driver wanted to return the same day, he drove like Keiichi Tsuchiya on narrow mountain roads making this hell of a ride.
We stopped at many places for breakfast/lunch/snacks/maintenance. Mountain beauty from cab window was soothing and treat for the city eyes.
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| PC: Romesh |
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| PC: Romesh |
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| PC : Atiq |
We were also greeted by clouds by showering heavily for many hours starting from afternoon. Canvas cover on top of cab was not properly covering the bags so many bags along with cloths and other necessary stuff got wet. Temperature dropped drastically because of rain, ruling out any chance of taking bath with cold water.
Finally, after 10 hours of long drive we reached Loharjung. We stayed in nice guest house where on arrival we were welcomed with hot tea and pakoras. Nothing can beat those hot pakoras with tea in cold weather. We met our other trek mates while fighting for piece of pakoras, I recon it was an engineered ice breaker :). Later in the evening TTH guys briefed us about everything including kind of food they will serve, cloths to carry, different problems related to altitude, mules, etc.
I slept like a baby in a cozy bed after being awake for more than 35 hours.
Day 2: Loharjung to Didna (7,662 to 8,045 ft)
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| PC: Romesh |
After good night sleep I was re-energized to take any challenge this trek gonna throw at me.
In the morning we met our trek guides who briefed us about day. We bought few trekking essentials from local shops and after Paranthas in breakfast we started our first trekking day.
Today's trek Didna village. It was fairly easy trek for first 4 hours and 1 hour moderate ascend towards the end. After crossing amazing forests, many water streams we finally reached Didna village, small village with no electricity :(.
TTH has arranged a home stay for us. We were welcomed with Rhododendron juice(Desi Energy Drink).
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| PC:Bharat |
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| PC:Bharat |
We had lunch at around 1:30 PM and then started playing Mafia.This was the moment when melted ice caught fire and each one of us started knowing/understanding each other better. In no time, group of people who hardly knew each other become good friends and this makes rest of the trek even more enjoyable.
Guides and support staff(Backbone of Trek):
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| PC: Agni |
1. Thakur : Knowledge is my trade.
2. Kunwarji : Most helpful guide you can possibly imagine.
3. Suraj : You can ask anything and expect most fantasized answers.
4. & 5. Gabbar 1 and Gabbar 2 : Very innocent and extremely hardworking.
Trekkers(Lifeline of Trek) :
1. Romesh(Romio): God of Mafia. A man who travels with everything. You can find literally anything ranging from nail cutter to pen-drive in his 20 kg Bag.
2. Bharat: Fittest Photographer alive.
3. Atiq: Entertainer of the group.
4. Anup(Anup ji Maharaj): Mahabharata Guru. He recited the complete Mahabharata while trekking, making our journey very interesting.
5. Deepti: Mafia ho to esa.
6. Agni: 100 TB disk installed in brain. Checked.
7. Bhageshri: Oximeter Queen.
8. Amrish: Soldier of the group.
9. Yamini: Determination Personified.
10. Swathi: Singing of the group. She has amazing voice.
11. Rajesh: ABD at 12700 ft altitude.
12. Arti: Cough-Cough.
At 4:00 PM rain ruined our plans of bonfire, as if heavens wanted us to stay inside. In our dorm everyone narrated horror stories and shared their experiences. Everyone was laughing lying in the bed until Thakur came with soup and Oximeter. This magic device decides how much O2 is in our body and based on that we were about to be instructed to go ahead or go back.
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| PC:Anup |
When clouds permitted we went out for small walk near the village on the mountains, lush green step fields looked even prettier after rain.
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| PC: Anup |
After returning from walk we had dinner and then straight to bed. I don't remember when I went to bed at 8 PM in the city life.
Day 3: Didna to Ali Bugyal
We woke up early in the morning. Everything happened very fast we had breakfast and packed lunch for the day. Today's trek was 10.5 KM to Ali Bugyal, second largest meadows in Asia. It was overcast and we kept our raincoat/ponchos out. After walking 1 hour, sky started crying to spoil the day, it kept pouring for rest of the trek. We put on our raincoats/ponchos and we kept climbing in rain. As rain made our trek difficult, company of trek mates and their stories turned our trek into a walk to remember. Trek guides helped us along the slippery slopes of this tiring journey. We went though dense forest into lush green meadows.
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| PC: Atiq |
Trees suddenly stops growing at particular altitude because of lack of O2. Here we had our packed lunch while trying to find better place to beat the rain. Only thing rain managed to spoil was stopping us from capturing the moment in camera, but we still managed to steel few moments.
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| PC: Agni |
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| PC: Atiq |
Our campsite was just near tree line, on one side of the hill there was dense forest and another side there was grass land. After reaching camp site we selected our tents and we were provided with sleeping bags, this was my first experience of sleeping in small camping tent and sleeping bag.
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| PC: Anup |
We were given second lunch of the day. By this time I started getting head ache(still don't know if this was because of AMS or because of lack of caffeine in my body). I informed about my head ache to Kunwarji as this is a symptom of AMS. Kunwarji told me that we will go somewhere to have coffee, I was little surprised to hear this as we were in the middle of no-where.
Me and Kuverji started walking in search of coffee, and I started questioning like how long we have to walk,etc and to my surprise shops started appearing only after 5 mins of walking. We went there I had coffee, sat there for sometime, bought few more things to eat and returned to base camp while Kunwarji was still talking to his friend in the shop. This is the first time when trek guides went out of their way to help me.
Most of the afternoon was spend trying to fight rain while drying cloths. In evening, we went to collect woods for campfire under the guidance of Thakur. On returning to base camp we had awesome vegetable soup. Thanks to Thakur's skills, we finally had a bonfire, on a day which is mostly invaded by clouds.
After having dinner we went to sleeping bags.
Day 4: (Ali Bugyal to Patar Nachauni)
To our surprise, sky was clear in the morning and there was no sign of clouds anywhere in sky. Sun was shining and we spread our cloths on tents and on ground to get dry. Early morning view of mountains without any clouds was breath taking. People with cameras started making up for the previous day.
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| PC: Anup |
We started walking at around 8 AM and our next destination is Patar Nachauni, its a easy-moderate walk along big grass lands, great peak views and sizzling passes.
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| PC: Agni |
Finally we reached our base camp and to my surprise there was a small cafe with full on music. You can get small eatables chocolates/tea/coffee/bread omlet, shop have a generator and solar panel so some of us also charged our phone's battery. From camp site, there was wonderful views of waterfall, great mountains and wide grass lands.
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| PC: Bharat |
After lunch we climbed a nearby hill for acclimatization. We played cricket with base camp support staff. In the evening Thakur came to induce horror with Oximeter, some of us were on border line including me.
We again went for acclimatization walk along with Thakur this time little far from our base camp to a near by base camp where again there were few shops and we spent some quality time there. After returning to base camp, base camp manager tested us for O2 and this time he will take a call whether to continue or leave us behind, fortunately we all passed.
We were asked to leave unnecessary stuff on the base camp and after dinner we went to bed.
Day 5: (Patar Nachauni to Bhagwabasa)
Today's trek was around 2 KM moderate ascend and 3 KM gradual descend.
As we climbed grass started disappearing and rocky mountains started appearing. Patches of snow on side of mountains and trek trail started emerging.
After the climb we reach Kalu Vinayak, small temple on the top of the hill. We spent good 30 min relaxing, had a fierce snow fight and then continued our journey. Rest of the journey was relatively simple.
Our base camp was on the top of hill and it was giving a majestic view of Himalayas. Most of the view was blocked by clouds but few times clouds passes giving glimpse of Himalalayas.
Even this base camp has small cafes. We had tea/coffee at the last cafe of India :). After lunch we played mafia and 21 questions where we were baffled by Romio's witty question.
In the evening we ate samosa with tea, met our tech team, got our crampons and learned how to use them.
When we went for acclimatization walk we practice walking wearing crampons and Thakur tought us few things about mountaineering in snow covered peaks like Mount Everest.
We went to sleep early to prepare for the next big day.
Day 6: (Bhagwabasa to Roopkund and back to Patar Nachauni)
We woke up when Kunwarji came to each tent as wake up call at 2 AM. While quickly getting ready I realized my money bag is missing. I thought I must have dropped it somewhere and wind must have taken it far away. I informed this to trek guides, just in case anyone finds it.
We wore our crampons and started moving towards our destination at 3:15 AM. Night trekking is one of the wonderful adventure when you don't have head lamp :P, but with the help of trek mates I was able to manage. We were moving slowly towards our destinations crossing small snow patches and entering into deep snow, taking rest wherever required. Last 30 min was steep ascend which finally ends at the Roopkund top :).
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| PC: Agni |
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| PC: Romesh |
Without waiting in roopkund we 5(Me, Bharat, Agni, Atiq and Amresh) moved towards Junargali. We were the last batch to climb Junargali and snow started getting soft making climb more difficult.
Junargali is a steep climb of about 250 ft with around 70% steep slope towards the last 20% of trek. We finished this climb in about 20 min with the help of tech team and ropes.
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| PC: Romesh |
Junargli gives a clear view of complete mountain range. We congratulated each other after finishing a challenging climb. We captured the moment in our cameras and spent some time looking at the master piece of nature.
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| PC: Agni |
Descend from Junargali is little risky because of 70% slope, there is big chance of getting slip and sliding, so tech team asked us to hold the rope and taught us how to get down very carefully by digging heal first.
After descend TTH gave us hot breakfast at Roopkund top. We went down to Roopkund lake, took some pictures and started descending.
Descend to Bhagwabasa was easy in the beginning and then our feet started paining. Finally after a painful walk we reached Bhagwabasa base camp.
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| PC: Romesh |
After reaching Bhagwabasa base camp we had lunch, rested for few minutes. Since I lost my money, thanks to Anup/Atiq and Romio for lending me money. I again had coffee at last cafe of India, thanks to Kunwarji for paying for my coffee.
We started descending slowly, relaxed and absorbing the views around the trek. We again rested at Kalu Vinayak for few minutes and continued to our journey. I found my money wallet which was mistakenly in the water holder pocket. On getting this news, Kunwarji came running to me, he was even happier than me.
We walked slowly and reached Patar Nachauni base camp at around 1 PM. We had lunch at around 2 PM. We spent rest of the day playing dumb charades and sitting in shop. No Oximeter, no acclimatization walk, so relaxed and lively after achieving the target.
Day 7: (Patar Nachauni to Loharjung via Wan village)
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| PC: Anup |
After having breakfast and taking packed lunch we started our long journey of 15 KM to Wan village at around 8 AM. We descended to Bedni Bugyal where we had tea/coffee at small shop. After crossing meadows we again enter into dense forest and continued descending for many hours till we reach Neel Ganga river.
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| PC: Anup |
River was freezing cold, this was so relaxing. We ate our lunch sitting next to river, food didn't had any spice, not even salt, again Romio's Pickle came to rescue. We sit on the stone with our feet inside water, water was so cold that it was difficult to keep feet inside water for long. After feet, comes the turn of head, I kept my head till neck inside water for 10 sec, this was so good that I did this several time :).
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| PC: Agni |
We moved ahead towards Wan villages stopping at many places for rest. Finally we reached near civilization with mountains having amazingly big trees.
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| PC: Anup |
Our trek finished at Wan village where cabs were already waiting for us to take us to Loharjung. After reaching Loharjung I took bath after 8 long days :). We were given very tasty pakoras along with tea.
Trekkers planned a small dinner treat to celebrate our time together and to show our gratitude towards trek guides and support staff.
Just before the dinner we had certificate given ceremony where everyone has to share their experience after taking certificate and trek guides also shared their experience.
After eating spicy chicken, egg curry and Paneer we went for small walk. Feeling was so overwhelming that people didn't want to sleep.
Day 8: (Loharjung to Kathgodam)
Good Bye time :(. In the morning our cabs came at 7:30 AM. Kunwarji, Thakur and Gabbars came to greet us good bye and we all said adios to each other and left the place in 2 cabs.
Our cabs were synced and group united again for breakfast and lunch :). I had plans to do paragliding in Bheemtal so we got down at Bheemtal and group continued their journey to Kathgodam.
We spent sometime in Bheemtal and then headed back to Haldwani and then to Delhi.
The Hangover
Swathi created whatsapp group and added all of us in that so we could stay in touch.
Even though the trek is over but its hangover was still there for many days. People just wanted to go back.
