Kuari Pass Trek October 2012

Journey through the Kuari Pass

Granted I have not been to the Kilimanjaros or Mont Blancs of the world, but I am not talking about exotic expeditions. It is not as if I have not trekked in different parts of the world and so have my friends on this amazing trek through the Kuari Pass that I am going to talk about. We have been places, some more than others; but certainly none of us was ever just a couch warmer. This is as sure as the majestic eagles that fly over the huge peaks in the Himalayas; never in the past have I had such an out of body experience. Never have I been a part of such magnificence or been presented with such grandeur. Just take a brief look at the picture here and you will know what I am talking about.

No wonder I am behaving like a 10 year old, excited and bragging about our little adventure. So, if you find this all amateurish, so be it. And you may be right, so if you were hoping to get some professional insights into the Himalayan trekking; read no further. This is not designed to be an article which provides expert advice to professionals and you may be disappointed. But if you are a Himalayan enthusiast, professional or amateur, and enjoy reading about the experiences of the fellow trekkers, read on and I assure you of a virtual tour that would take you to the Kuari Pass.

I present the article in roughly four sections, namely the section that provides the day by day count of our memorable journey through the Himalayan Mountains, the section on trekking tips for amateur trekking enthusiasts, the section on our impressions of the local Uttarakhand areas and last but not the least a section on our takeaways.  Feel free to skip and hop through the sections back and forth, if you will; but I would advise a straight read for better enjoyment as I have attempted to string the thoughts through the sections.

Journey through the Kuari Pass

I promise to keep this session as informative and fact filled as I can; though I am sure emotions will cloud my judgment here and you may find some exclamations and opinions here as well. I request that you read past those, if they bother you along the way. Before we move on, as a justification on my part of the behavior  I request you to imagine your very first journey on route to heaven and beyond. I am sure you will understand me.

First the highlights…

Like to get my emotions out of the way first; so these sum of the softer aspects of the trek I dig the most. Post this we talk about the information part.

The trek group

It was a group of eight people, males between the age group of 35-50, all colleagues from Siemens (except me, who is a former Siemens guy, but still in close contact with the old, and I mean old, mates), Seven of us coming in from Pune and one from Mumbai. Abhijit Pathak was the planner and leader for logistics management and coordination with Umed for the trek. Since he was able to bring along his brother’s wonderful SLR professional camera with wide angle lens; he was also our official photographer. He must have taken 100+ photographs for the trek and was carrying the heavy but delicate camera through the entire trek. Nikhil Kelkar is the undisputed trekking leader and our fitness coordinator, who ensured that we performed our stretches regularly every day. Milind Nanal, an epitome of fitness, in spite of suffering from cold was able to move at will and accelerate significantly on climb ups.  Ajay Gandhe, another young guy is a real team mate, as he supported everyone all through the trek rather than trying to show off his fitness. Samir Desai and Prashant Bramhankar, with their situational wit, provided the ever needed liveliness to the group by ensuring cheerful demeanor  pulling everyone’s leg and making every moment fun.  Prashant carried an enormous responsibility to manage the common items needed by everyone. Samir just returned from the US and it was a while before we had met; so it was lovely to join him on this adventure. Pramod Pawar was the mainstay of the group, providing mature advice and ensuring everyone including the support staff was comfortable. With the luggage he carried, he could have provided anything to anyone short of something important. With his religious nature, he led everyone through the religious ceremonies at both Rishikesh and Badrinath. Prashant, Pramod, Samir and Nikhil were the source of information on good trekking gear, especially for me. That leaves me, the newbie to the team. I was so enamored with my first trekking experience, that probably the only contribution I made to the team providing someone for them to pick on and also ensuring that everyone shaved every morning. And of course, how can I forget the important responsibility that I carried; trek money and expense management. Girish Phansalkar, a close friend of the group and my business partner, was sorely missed as he could not join due to prior business commitments. I should mention that I have really been fortunate to join on this trek. Initially the group had planned for a trek in August, which after full preparations had to be cancelled at the last moment due to several landslides resulting from a cloud burst in the Uttarakhand. Girish was slated to join this trek in August, while I was not. The October trek in the Kuari Pass was planned as a substitute eventually which I could join. Anyway, an important lesson was that the Himalayan treks should be planned at specific kosher times of the year and surely not in the depths of the rainy season.

The Group

Last row standing (left to right): Prashant Bramhankar, Samir Desai, Pramod Pawar, Rajendra Chaudhari, Nikhil Kelkar and Umed Panwar (our trek coordinator)

First row sitting (left to right): Abhijit Pathak, Milind Nanal, and Ajay Gandhe

Live life king size

I can’t even begin to describe the pleasure of trekking in India. As you already know, we were a bunch of amateurs totally used to the comforts of the city such as Pune and Mumbai. Now comes the interesting part and don’t drop your jaw yet. Would you believe; for the eight of us, healthy and strong is how we liked to describe ourselves, there was support staff of nine locals and seven horses all through the trek? We did not have to carry our luggage, pitch our own tents, cook our food or clean up our camp site. We would get hot morning tea as soon as we wake up, breakfast before the start of the day’s climb, packed lunch, tea upon reaching the camp site for the night, hot soup in the evening and dinner by camp fire; all hot and freshly cooked food. Our tests will be pitched and ready by the time we reach the camp site, mats laid out and sleeping bags provided. Hot water was available for us to brush, shave or even wash our hands. I will not be lying to you if I say that such was the care and comfort showered on us through the trek, the first feeling we had coming back was that we are no back to the grind. Why, one of us even posted that on his face book timeline.

Blessed days

Thanks to the gracious one watching over us; none of were injured, ill or even hurting during any part of the trek. No, no, no; the trek wasn’t easy and comfortable by any stretch of our imagination (and keep in mind that we are all expert at imagination); it was quite strenuous by our standards. By now, you have an image of us all already in your mind; so think of us climbing up and down 1000-1500 meters daily, through multiple ranges, 75 odd kms over 6 days with around 60 kms covered in just 4 days, crossing over at least 5 huge mountain ranges, hot during the day and chilly in the night with severe winds. So, you can be sure that the trek wasn’t easy. The fact that we had excellent weather all those 6 days in the mountains with the Sun shining brightly during the day and hardly any rain/snow (only once did we have some rain, that too in the night while we were in the comfort of the warm sleeping bags and double covered tents with gutters around for water drainage) was a great blessing we realized every day and touched wood to goad this to continue.

I shudder to think of the situation if any of us by any chance had fever or twisted his ankle on day 2 or 3. That would have meant spending the remaining part of the journey on horseback (and I can vouch that this won’t be as comfortable as you think. Not because it would cause severe trauma to your bum sitting so long on the horse, but because of the fear a horse walking (I should say jogging) on the stony uneven trails on the treacherous ledges with steep falls on one side could instill in you. Actually, the horses are the safest bet one can have. Not only do they have four legs to balance, but an innate sense of balance; which is so important. If you hang tight, they well how to take care of themselves. (This, anyway, is a daily affair for them.)

So from that perspective the journey was completely uneventful and allowed us all the total privilege of enjoying the heavenly beauty around us.

Trekking discipline

While I am giving so much credit to the larger force, I should also acknowledge due (albeit small) credit to us for showing the discipline that I am sure made good contribution to our well being  In my opinion, this helped us the most through the entire journey. While we were provided the best care by our support staff, this discipline helped us ensure that we had a safe and secure trek.

First of all, given our ages, we were a mature no nonsense group. No booze, smoke before the start of the day’s trek, regular 10 minute head to toe stretch exercises before and after the trek for the day led by Nikhil our fitness leader, no heroism in terms of trying stupid stunts, no heady risk taking, using the best warm and sunny time of the day to make the most progress, timely nutrition through dry fruits, snack bars and packed lunch, ensuring sufficient water intake to avoid dehydration and much more talks amply about our disciplined approach. This is highly recommended for everyone to ensure high levels of energy and fitness through the trek.

Excellent co-ordination and support

With everyone except me having been on multiple treks in the Himalayas in the past, we knew well what to expect and were well prepared for not just the emergency situations, but also for regular rigors of the trekking day. We were carrying all what we needed and only what we needed. This made logistics management easier.

Our trek coordinator was Mr. Umed Panwar from Uttarkashi (see in picture), who took excellent care of us through the whole journey from Dehradun back to Dehradun. We had allocated 2 days for the flights each way, a day each for the bus journey from Rishikesh to Ghat and return from Badrinath to Rishikesh, one additional buffer day for the 6 day planned trek, just in case needed. The first and last days were designed more as warm up and cool down days with only about 7 kms trek each day and even within the strenuous 4 days of the trek, the tempo was built up as the harder climbs came in on day 4 and 5. The bus journeys and lodge stays were quite comfortable as well. Deepak and Lokesh drove fast but carefully while the owner of Shivansh Inn lodge Mr. Virender as well the caretaker Ajay took great care of us.

With seven horses carrying everything we needed including food, gas cylinders, tents, mats, sleeping bags and our ruck-sacks; we only needed to carry bare minimum on the actual climbs ourselves. We had a great support staff comprising of Mr. Umed – our coordinator, Mahinderji – our local guide, Dhiraj and Sohan – our best mates helping with any and everything, the life of the trek keeping us well fed Ustaad Elam sigh – our chef and 4 men managing the horses, of which Radhe and Puransinghji were particularly caring. None of us will ever forget them and I am sure they won’t forget us either.  It would be high hypocritical to thank them as they have meant much more than that to us, but surely they had a great role to play in our satisfying journey through the Himalayas. Mr. Umed, in particular has become such an integral part of everything; Pramod rightfully mentioned that he is now a part of our larger family and we can’t imagine the next trek in Uttarakhand without Umed.

The entire team

Last row standing (left to right): Ustaad Elam Singh (our Chef), Sohan Singh (support), Radhe (Horse man), two other horse men whose names we never learnt, Dheeraj (support) and Puran Singh (Horse man)

Front row sitting (left to right): Mahinderji (our local guide), Pramod Pawar, Nikhil Kelkar, Rajendra Chaudhari, Prashant Bramhankar, Samir Desai, Ajay Gandhe, Abhijit Pathak, Milind Nanal and Umedji Panwar (our guide and trek coordinator)

Fellow trekkers

The classical Kuari Pass trek goes from Auli to Ghat. Most trekkers traditionally use that route for the trek for the main reason that Auli with its proximity to Joshimath, a larger pilgrimage town with one of twelve peethas of Shankaracharaya, has better access to local guides and help with horses. However, our trek planner Abhijit and our coordinator Umed decided to go the other way round i.e. from Ghat to Auli for logistical reasons; as Mahinderji, Dhiraj and all other support staff hail from the mountain village of Ghunni very close to Ghat. Man, was it the best decision of all. We really loved it and were extremely happy that we chose the reverse route. The best advantage of that was of course that the best views were saved for the last, as we got trekked from forested green ranges towards the snow filled ranges through the Kuari Pass (as you will see from the day by day details below). The second advantage was that we crossed most other trekkers along the road coming in from Auli and how many trekkers of what diversity would we have met? We met trekkers from pretty much all around the globe and then realized how very popular Uttarakhand treks are globally; keep in mind that this is just one of many planned trek routes in Uttarakhand. We met groups from Czechoslovakia, Singapore, Germany, France, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, United States and India; in that order. Interestingly the group from India was just two people, from Pune and Mumbai again, but much more self-sufficient than us, carrying their own GPS and other equipment. The only time we had a conflict with camp site occupancy was when the Singapore group occupied the camp site at the Jhangi village and we had to settle with a local village lodge and thankfully there was one.  The story will not be complete unless I mention about a 73 year lady from Maine, US we met across on the trek. At her age, she was really able to endure the trek well, was enjoying herself really and greeted us cheerfully telling us what great natural treasure awaits us at the Kuari Pass.

Now the detailed journey…

Hopefully, I will be able to give you enough information about the trek, some of which you may find useful if you plan on this specific trek yourself.

The complete trek plan for us was as follows… See the map for the trek portion

·         Day 1 (October 2’ 2012): Fly Pune/Mumbai-Delhi-Dehradun -Jet Airways. Bus to Rishikesh.

·         Day 2 (October 3’ 2012): Bus from Rishikesh to Ghat, our starting point for the trek

·         Day 3 (October 4’ 2012): Ghat to Ghunni (7 km by bus, 7 km climb)

·         Day 4 (October 5’ 2012): Ghunni to Jhangi (16 km)

·         Day 5 (October 6’ 2012): Jhangi to Pana (13 km)

·         Day 6 (October 7’ 2012): Pana to Dhakwani (16 km)

·         Day 7 (October 8’ 2012): Dhakwani to Tali (15 km) through Kuari Pass

·         Day 8 (October 9’ 2012): Tali to Auli (8 km) and then Auli to Badrinath by bus

·         Day 9 (October 10’ 2012): buffer day

·         Day 10 (October 11’ 2012): Bus journey from Badrinath to Rishikesh

·        Day 11 (October 12’ 2012): Bus to Dehradun. Fly Dehradun-Delhi-Pune/Mumbai – Kingfisher

                Check the day detail for our hate-hate relationship with Dr. Mallya

Our trek route day-by-day with destination heights from sea level along with the key snow peaks in the vicinity all superimposed on the terrain 

Day 1 (October 2’ 2012): Fly Pune/Mumbai-Delhi-Dehradun -Jet. Bus to Rishikesh.

Thanks for careful planning, Day 1 was event less and comfortable. To me it seemed like everyone was just focused on the next few days in anticipation of the adventure ahead and just went through the motions of the present day. The only excitement that caught our attention was the entry of a monkey in the Delhi airport and the futile attempts of the airport staff to drive him away.

I must mention something that struck me on the flight from Delhi to Dehradun. As we approached Dehradun, I could clearly see a pattern of vast plain lush green plain fields interspersed with small densely populated (as they seemed from the plane) hamlets on the west and high mountain ranges on the east, the imposing Missouri being a good representative close to Dehradun. The Dehradun airport is small and mostly deserted, since it probably only connects to the Delhi airport.  Our coordinator Mr. Umed was waiting for us and we were quickly whisked away from the airport straight to religious place of Rishikesh, where we settled in a cosy lodge called Shivansh Inn. It offered many more comforts than I expected such as air conditioning and cable TV; and we had ample time to adjust ourselves; shift our luggage from our bags to the rucksacks provided by Umed and have a nice dinner later in the evening in addition to main attraction of the evening, the Ganga snan (a bath in the holy waters of Ganga). The snan was very refreshing even though the water was quite cold; I also believe that the water at Rishikesh is probably cleaner than the water downstream. Post the snan, we attended the evening Aarti (prayer) of Ganga on the banks of Ganga. It was quite a calming experience, as the whole atmosphere is filled with sound the river flowing close by and the chants of the singers saying the prayers. As sun sets bring dusk along, the lamps being offered to the Ganga make for a beautiful sight and serenity just engulfs you. 

Aarti of Ganga at Rishikesh

Day 2 (October 3’ 2012): Bus from Rishikesh to Ghat, our staring point (214 km)

I was the only one so excited on the journey and surely it had to do with the fact that this was my first time. The entire journey of around 250 kms from Rishikesh to Ghat, which takes about 10 hours, goes on roads that wind up and down the mountain ranges. I have been on the ghats (the road through and along the mountains) in the Sahyadri or even in the US; but never have I been on a trip in the mountains that lasted straight 10 hours like this. At every turn, I would see the high peaks and the deep valleys and at every turn I would feel like stopping the bus to take photographs. The others seemed uninterested in that thought; as they had been there at least a couple more times earlier and promised me that they would send me some of those photographs; which of course they are yet to send to me.

We cross several Prayags (A Prayag is a religious place situated at a sangam or confluence of two or more rivers) along the way. The beautiful town of Devprayag was the best of all, where rivers Bhagirathi and Alaknanda come together; here you can see the distinctly different colors of the two rivers; Bhagirathi as green and Alaknanda as brownish grey. Of course, this is a color of the soil and sediments; but who cares as long as it looks amazing. Then we follow Alaknanda all the way to our destination, Ghat and along the drive through her other confluences Rudraprayag (sangam of Alaknanda and Mandakini), Karnaprayag (sangam of Alaknanda and Pindar) and finally Nandaprayag (sangam of Alaknanda and Nandakini). The sacred Alaknanda river makes 5 such confluences (called Panch Prayags – see map) all of which we passed through, including the remaining one named Vishuprayag (a sangam of Alaknanda and Dhauliganga, which we pass through on day 9 along our way from Joshimath to Badrinath. We stopped over at Devprayag for a cool drink of lemon, at Nandaprayag for afternoon tea and at the biggest town of Srinagar on route for lunch.

We stayed at the Rajdeep lodge is Ghat and it was decent one for one night stay. It was clean and no issues with mosquitoes, insects, lizards etc; except that I felt something on my legs at night only to realize that it was a just a cat, which we shooed away through the open door. What troubled us was the first encounter with the cold. Ghat was much colder than Rishikesh and also compared to my expectation. We wandered around a couple dimly lit lanes but did not venture much as it quickly got dark and cold; which reminded us of hot food. Anyway, we did buy good quality locally grown dry fruit at a fair price and purchased some small gifts for the children of our guide Mahinder and Dhiraj.

Day 3 (October 4’ 2012): Ghat to Ghunni (7 km by bus, 7 km climb)

Ghat: 1330 meters

Ghunni: 2550 meters

Ghat to Ghunni: 7 kms with trek time of 3 hrs

This was the first day of our real trek and after two days of a bit of a passive journey, we were all ready to go. The original leg of the trek goes from Ghat to Ramni, a 14 km climb; but recently a drivable road has been made by the Uttarakhand government along this route; so we shifted instead to a 7 km climb up to the village of Ghunni after a 7 km drive from Ghat. At the start of the climb, we were greeted by our support staff and the horses; where our rucksacks were offloaded from the bus. The morning was bright and sunny, the spirits high and everything taken care of; what more do you need to begin. The excitement was then aptly capped by our first sneak at snow peaks of Nandaghunti (Height: XXX meters) right within the first 15 minutes of our climb; and then even wind could not stop us. We initially thought it was the great Nanda Devi peak, but the euphoria settled down once we realized it was not. Anyway, Nandaghunti is high rising peak on the outer Nanda Devi circuit with wonderful views of the peak. We pretty much circled this and virtually saw this peak from all directions.

Ghunni also happens to be where Mahinder and Dheeraj live. They were gracious enough to shower a lot of hospitality to us as we stopped over at their home along the way. They offered home grown fruits such as a large khira (cucumber), softly cooked corn and wonderfully warm coffee. The house is built in a great location with a lovely view of the mountain ranges and the Ghat valley below with a gentle breeze. The house was also well built with high quality material and cleverly designed to protect from the sun, the rains and the cold night. We noticed that we were still close to civilization as we were surrounded with three towers and we could connect on all mobile operators. Since it would be almost 5 days from then that we would get mobile range, everyone made the last phone call home that afternoon.

Our camp site was close to a school and when we reached there was a big congregation (a health camp) at the school with a doctor providing tips on how to fight viral fever to the school kids. These kids had climbed up almost half the mountain themselves to meet with the doctor. You would chuckle to know that these little kinds with just chappals were able to run up and easily beat us hollow even when we had just begun our trek and had only one mountain to climb for the day. The kids were so interested in everything that we did as you can see from the attached photo that we could not hold ourselves from getting really engaged with them.

Kids so keen to view the photo image: Prashant seems to be enjoying the attention too

At the night fall though everything transformed; all the activity fizzled out and we could experience the stillness. The village lights faded and the sky shown with its real glory so brightly that we could clearly see the solid white band of the Milky way across the skies.

Day 4: (October 5’ 2012): Ghunni to Jhangi (16 km)

Ghunni: 2550 meters

Jhangi: 2000 meters

Ghunni to Jhangi: ~15 kms with trek time of 7+ hrs

We began the arduous part of our trek refreshed bright and early with a really tough climb early on that left us pretty much breathless. At the top though was a large plain field, where we came across about five to six hundred sheep guarded only by five or six dogs; but we noticed that they distributed themselves very cleverly to watch the entire landscape effectively. They did not seem to be bothered by us; probably guessed that we oldies were quite harmless. This part of the terrain was full of Bugyals (an area full of trees) of Kharso trees and the Burans flowers. After another brief climb we reached the top of our climb for the day. From this point, we got a glimpse of the Kuari Pass a few ranges out and realized how much more we needed to trek through to get to our point of interest; it looked amazing though and charged us up even more. We must have climbed up about 1000 meters already; but little did we know that we needed to climb about 1500 meters down to Jhangi for our camp in the evening.

Anyway the descent was in two steps; the first one was gentle and along the way we were treated to a beautiful pose by two little sheeplets cuddling with each other. Pramod was quick to notice them and Abhijit to catch them on the silver. But the second one was rocky and never ending; especially that we started on this descent after lunch and brief rest. 

The cuddling sheep lets

We thought we were never going to see Jhangi; of course, it took a lot of energy and patience to go through. It was particularly tough for me as I don’t like descents, given that my knees hurt on the climb down. I also believe climbing up is healthy as it exercises all the parts of the body that get better with exercise such as your heart, lungs and the muscles; whereas not many of these are stretched during a climb down which affects with wear and tear only the joints, which should be preserved at our ages. Prashant had brought along a couple of supporting sticks for me from the US and I used them well on this descent to reduce the impact on my knees. 

Typical trail

Having trudged through the last climb down, as we reached the small Jhangi village at around dusk; we were in for a shock realizing that our camp site was already taken by a group from Singapore coming in the other way round. We had no other convenient campsite for our group of 17 people and 7 horses; so had to settle at a local lodge for the night. The only advantage of the lodge was that we had access to WLL and hence could make a phone call home. The problem though was that we could not have a big camp fire and had to settle on a weak one that did not last very long and also created more smoke than fire. On the descent we had to cross through a waterfall and my shoes go completely wet. I tried drying them up on the fire albeit unsuccessfully; but thankfully I had brought in another pair for the remaining part of the trek. We were glad to get the evening soup, the warm dinner and much deserved good night’s rest.

Day 5: (October 6’ 2012): Jhangi to Pana (13 km)

Jhangi: 2000 meters

Pana: 2450 meters

Jhangi to Pana: ~15 kms with trek time of 6 hrs

We started this day with a climb down for about 45 minutes when we cross a stream before we began our climb of the day. Just before the crossing we hit a rare traffic jam in the mountains caused by yet another mob of sheep, some 600+ again trying to squeeze through a narrow bridge over the stream and a narrow trail past that towards us. The sheep were clearly affected by our presence and were quite tentative crossing us and this took almost about 10 minutes. Of course, we were clearly enjoying the company all along trying to get as many pictures as we can, especially of the little ones who were trying to stay with their parents in the crowd.

The climb was really steep and treacherous at many places thanks to the landslides and rockfalls everywhere. Mahinderji told us that these landslides were caused by the action of the JCBs trying to make a drivable road between Ramni and Pana. This made me wonder if we are on the path of hurting the pristine virginity of the nature trying to create convenient and comfortable means for access to the remote places. Significant portion of the Himalayan mountain is made up of line stone which is much more brittle than the basalt we are used to in other places and as a result many of these trails (and why just trails, even roads as we saw earlier) are quite vulnerable. Some of the trails are even lost completely, which was the case with us. An interesting observation is that most of these rocks carry significant metal content, a kind of shining metal which we suspected to be manganese but were not sure and Mahinderji did not know either; but they look really cool in the sun. We reached some good heights on this climb as we saw some eagles flying close to us; though we knew we will be going much higher in the days to come. Once we reached the top of this climb, we got a glimpse of beautiful Pana village nestled in the belly of a large mountain range winding around itself.

From that point we followed the winding trail with a gentle up and down path at a significant height, though this was really enjoyable. We found a bit of a waterhole for our lunch break and then completed the day with one final climb above the village of Pana. This was a steep but short climb and we actually managed to reach our campsite before 2:00 pm that day. This really saved us, as we got to the site before the crew from the other side could make it to that. Anyway, I should make it clear here that the horses with all the luggage typically start an hour and half later than us in the morning and reach about an hour earlier than us to put up the camp; so it actually suffices if the horses reach there early enough to stake our claim and we can make it at our leisurely pace as long as we get there before dusk. Also, we did not really have to compete much for the claim on the camp site through the trek anyway. Yet again we clearly saw the milky white band of our galaxy across the sky.

Day 6: (October 7’ 2012): Pana to Dhakwani (16 km)

Pana: 2450 meters

Dhakwani: 3185 meters

Pana to Dhakwani: ~15 kms with trek time of 7+ hrs

Without any contest, this was the toughest day of the entire trek for us. We had already gone through 30+ kms over the past two long days and on this day we had to make three tough climbs and two steep descents to reach Dhakwani, the base camp site for Kuari Pass. I will always remember the very first descent; it was narrow, steep and wet at most places. Most rocks were loose when they really seemed to be firm. I love firm rocks, I don’t mind lose ones as I know to avoid them; but I really hate those that look firm but aren’t. This descent was full of these kind; not only that but the general road was also very slippery. One slip and you are looking at a long slippery slide down. But I tell you; this was quite thrilling as opposed to scary and we all thoroughly enjoyed it. On this tough climb, we met the 73 year old American lady that I earlier talked about and her happy demeanor cheered us up. She also told us about the treasure that lay in front us beyond the Kuari Pass which provided a fresh breeze of energy in us and we needed that, indeed.

If the descent was treacherous, the very next climb was tiring and I mean really tiring. It was extremely steep and every hairpin bend was even steeper. The moment we began the climb we realized that if we stop on this one anywhere in between longer than two minutes, it would be next to impossible to catch your breath and begun the climb again. Once you are exhausted, your only way up was being saddled on a horse. Post this through there was a bit of trail winding around that range which provided the much needed breather. The group had lunch around a shade over there; but Nikhil and I realized that we still had another steep descent and the final long climb to go through; so we decided to skip lunch and keep moving. Umedji joined us and this proved to be important as the road was washed out ahead and without Umedji we may have been misled which is not a very happy prospect after 7 hours of climb and an approaching afternoon. But we made it fine and then were rewarded with hot Maggi noodles for our lunch.

Our stay at the Dhakwani climb was at the highest altitude that we would stay on this trek. The camp site was really high up in the mountain and we had high winds that night making it the coldest night we ever had. And the camp ground was so uneven that even with two thick mats under the sleeping bag we could not find comfortable positions in which we could sleep for long. The uneven ground, the cold winds and the excitement of the next morning meant that we had a rough night; surely at least I did. We made a really good campfire here as well and enjoyed our dinner talking about the journey till now and wondering about the next two days. 

Typical camp site

That evening we came across a few horses and men returning from the other direction. They had just accompanied another group to Auli and were on their way back home with their horses. Our guys offered them tea and they stopped over for a chat. We then realized that they were not carrying any tents and when asked they said they would just find a cosy cave to spend the night in. Umedji mentioned that our horse masters do the same every night and we shuddered. It then dawned on us as to what level of comfort we had wrapped up in several (at least 3-4) layers inside a sleeping bag inside a tent compared to our support staff who probably wore a couple of layers and slept in the open inside a cave. They said that they are used to this and that they light fire at the mouth of the cave so as to keep the cave warm and the animals away. Wow! We thought we should try that sometime, but of course not this time, right.

Day 7: (October 8’ 2012): Dhakwani to Tali (15 km) through Kuari Pass

Dhakwani: 3185 meters

Kuari Pass: 3640 meters

Highest point we reached: ~3800 meters just past the Kuari Pass

Chitrakantha: 3350 meters

Tali: 3150 meters

Dhakwani to Tali: ~15 kms with trek time of 7+ hrs

Dhakwani campsite is ideally placed for the trekkers to the Kuari Pass, since it is am hour long steep climb of 500+ meters from the pass allowing the trekkers a good opportunity to get to the top bright and early. If you indeed reach early enough, you are treated to the majestic sight of the snow peak ranges just next to you in full glory with sun shining and clouds yet to arrive. If you reach an hour or two late, say by 9:00 or 10:00 am, the clouds take over and then you might miss out the grand panorama. Keep in mind that you are not coming here again in the near future and you have to catch this heavenly beauty as much as you can fill in your camera, your eyes and your dreams if you have the imagination. We showed good discipline in getting ready early that day, and man we were really glad that we did so; we had clear skies to our disposal for a better part of two hours and made the most of it, with the nature god shining upon us.

There is a small temple of Nanda Devi at the top of the Pass and we performed pooja and prayers there. Mahinderji was well prepared with the pooja material and the Prasad as well. We very clearly saw several snow-capped peaks starting with Chaukhamba on the north east (a group of four similar mountains with a distinctive top on each of them – the highest one at 7138 meters), and as you look southwards the peaks of the Hathi parbat (6727 meters) and the Ghori parbat (6708 meters) with real distinct animal shaped ridges, the Changbang peak (6864 meters), the famous Dunagiri or Dronagiri (7066 meters) that Hanumana carried to and back from Sri Lanka to revive Lakshmana, the peak of Nandaghunti(6309 meters), a faint glimpse of the Trishul peak and then finally all the way to the south east the majestic twin peaks of Nanda Devi, rising tall (7816 & 7434 meters).

Majestic view from Kuari Pass: Chaukhamba on the left, the Hathi and Ghori on the right

One walks along the ridges of the Pass for about a couple of hours to fill in as much as possible of the snow peaks view before one goes through another steep climb down to Chitrakantha. BY the time we got to Chitrakantha, the clouds had gathered along and we could see more ominous darkish clouds from the south east gaining quickly on us. We expected to be hit by rain, but instead were blessed with a brief sparse snowflakes and in some case little snow stones. It felt lovely at the time; but we knew we had another 3 hour trek to complete for the day and wanted to stay ahead of the rain/snow front and we surely did. The rains spared us till late in the evening; but by the time the heavy downpour came in we were safely wrapped up inside our tents. It did mean that the night turned out to be much colder than we had anticipated; but this night we didn't care. We were still in the snow world and had a really sound sleep. The camp site was in a thick forest named Gurson Bugyal and this protected us from winds else we would have been subjected to a much colder night. Given that we were in a forest, there was no dearth of good flammable wood and we had probably the longest and warmest camp fire of the trek, as we found a couple of large logs.

Panoramic view of the campsite in the Tali Forest

This is where we ran across a guy from the US who was trekking alone on his own, coming in for the day from Tapovan side and planning to reach Auli before night fall. We had planned this for the next day and it took us 4+ hours to get there. He was going on his own carrying his 20+ kilos on his won back including his tent. Interestingly, we did not come across any animals in this or earlier forests.

Day 8: (October 9’ 2012): Tali to Auli (7 km); drive from Auli to Badrinath (58 km)

Tali: 3150 meters

Auli: 2750 meters

Tali to Auli: 8 kms with trek time of 3-4 hrs

Joshimath: 2100 meters

Badrinath: 3133 meters

If the views from Kuari Pass were memorable, the views along the ridges to Auli and then from Auli were nothing less than spectacular as we got closer to the snow ranges and were staring at the huge ranges just next to us rather than a bit farther away. As a result the last day really the cherry on the cake for us when we really imbibed the natural beauties around us with wide open eyes. Through the first two hour walk on the ledge you move from the views on the south east side to the views on the north east side as you turn the corner. So, initially you see Nanda Devi and then at the end you see Chaukhamba very closely; but constantly along the way, you see the Dunagiri parbat soaring high over the other ranges and across from the Tapovan valley of the Brithi Ganga river. This all makes for a wonderful view you don’t ever want to get away from. And then you see the eagles high in the air above these mountains; and you can’t but think about being a bird in the sky soaring very high so as to be able to see the entire Himalayan ranges below.

Wish I lived here!

We began our day with a photo shoot with all our support staff to carry their memories home and saying good bye to them. Most of them would traverse the same route backwards after dropping us off at Auli, so we thanked them for all there are through the trek with token gifts to each of them. We also noticed them preparing all the meals they would need for their return journey that very morning so as to keep them agile and able to move back fast. The journey that we made over six days, they were planning to cover within 3 days or less.

The early climb on the mountain ledge was treacherously narrow and steep. On the valley side it attained depth very quickly making it tough, especially as it turned around at corners. It is really commendable for someone like Pramod, with fear of heights to cross those ledges; never mind that while the others were walking with extreme care, the likes of Abhijit, Milind and Ajay were walking without much of it. For example, Abhijit was shooting a video while walking on these ledges and Ajay wouldn’t think twice before stretching along the downward slope for a perfect angle for the picture. The depth directly below is so significant that we could see helicopters going across much below us and for the very first time, we even saw the rainbow below us.

Soon as we reached the area of Auli’s famous cable car station (we were told that this is closed since three years for repair), we got into the mobile tower range and everyone got busy in the act of calling home. And then we got the news we were expecting to hear; that of Kingfisher flights being cancelled, which extended our hate relationship with Dr, Mallya. We then got into making alternate arrangements right away even as we just got into our bus.

The journey from Auli to Badrinath is memorable as well, as it winds down the difficult mountain ranges. We cross the 800 MW hydro power plant under construction by Jaypee Associates at Vishnuprayag and then the village of Govindghat which is the base for the Hemkund Sahib (4329 meters) and Valley of Flowers (3500 meters at the minimum point) treks that our group had done last year before we reach the pilgrimage town of Badrinath. Badrinath is one of the four important pilgrimage places in Uttarakhand (Chardham – Gangotri, Yamanotri, Badrinath and Kedarnath). Soon as we reached the hotel, we changed into fresh clothes and headed for a snan after several days at the Tapta Kunda (hot spring) of Badrinath. The water is extremely hot and one has to mix some cold water in it before you can use it for your bath; but it is extremely refreshing. Post the snan, we went straight to the temple for darshan before heading back to the hotel with a brief stopover at the market to purchase some memorabilia for people back home. An interesting conversation I can’t help but mention here; we saw in one of restaurants a huge pot of boiling milk and wanting to savor that planned on ordering it. Just then Umedji heard about this and asked us to stick to tea instead. When we asked why he chuckled asking do we even see any cows or buffaloes at such height anywhere, so the milk must be either of sheep or of milk powder? We had no argument.

Day 9: (October 10’ 2012): Buffer Day

The buffer day was provided for any contingencies in the trek and thankfully we didn't really need it. Also thanks to the change in the flight schedule, we could go back a day earlier than planned and hence we cancelled the buffer day. If we did not have the flight change issues, we were contemplating going for water rafting at Rishikesh; which we gave up eventually. It did not really matter, we were already content with what we had experienced and needed to internalize much of that; so we didn’t mind going home a day earlier. Besides, we had made the calls home the previous day and that had triggered the sense of going back home in the back of our minds already, I suppose.

Day 10: (October 10’ 2012): Bus journey from Badrinath back to Rishikesh (297 km)

This was going to be tough day as after having been used to daily treks, we were expected to sit through a 12 hour bus journey. Indeed it was long and tiring, except that we were saved by constant jokes from Prashant and Samir initially and then as we hit the evening, some soft music. We pretty much re-lived day 2; only this time I knew what to expect and where to take a picture. We all got up early around 5:30 am to see the snow peaks of Nar Parbat (5855 meters), Narayan parbat (5965 meter) and the grand Neelkanth soaring in the backdrop (6600 meters) and we were not disappointed. 

Neelkanth soaring above Badrinath in the morning

Just about 4 km from Badrinath is a place called Mana, which boasts of several places of mythological importance such as the origin of mythical river Saraswati, the Vyas Guha (cave) where Vyas rishi narrated the Mahabharata to Lord Ganesha etc. Mana is also the last habitat in Uttarakhand and is just about a couple of snow ranges and 24 kms away from the Tibet border. We missed out on going to Mana for the sake of time, else we may not have made it to Rishikesh the same night. After the Badrinath darshan early morning, we started around 8:00 am. Our driver Lokesh was very skillful  able to drive fast but safe and even with a couple hours or more of breaks, he managed to bring us into Rishikesh before 7:00 pm. This allowed us time to have a couple of cups of nice warm tea, switch our luggage from the rucksacks to our bags and still have nice long chat with Mr Virender over dinner. Of course, on our way back to Rishikesh we were lucky to have excellent overcast weather and the interplay of the setting sun and clouds was engaging.

Day 11: (October 11’ 2012): Bus to Dehradun. Fly Dehradun-Delhi-Pune/Mumbai – Kingfisher

This was eventless as well; the only excitement was provided by Baba Ramdev who flew in from Delhi and created a little flutter at the small Dehradun airport. Otherwise, we were engulfed in our thoughts, browsing through the pictures that we had clicked reminiscing the grand old days or reading the books we had picked up at the Dehradun airport to keep our minds busy; probably away from the sad feelings of leaving the Himalayas or from the thought of having to get back to grind of the daily chores when back home. The flights were fine and we all reached home in time for dinner. This is when we all probably had another excitement bout, talking to the family about every event in the trek, showing pictures etc. For me at least and surely for the others also, we were greeted with very strange reaction about how much I had tanned; my daughter could not stop laughing looking at the much darker looking dad.