Blissful trek to the Valley of Flowers, Uttarakhand

There is a reason why well-kept gardens are so salubrious to the mind and soul of living beings. Swathed in variegated shades of green and offering respite from the polluted environment of our cities, gardens and similar landscapes allures everyone to spend time. But there is a limit to such expanses in cities. One usually has to escape the bounds of the cities to find larger and more pristine environment. Our protected areas offer us the desired solace. It is always an invigorating feeling in such habitations. My visit to the Valley of Flowers in Uttarakhand stirs in me similar feelings.

The Valley of Flowers National park is open only for nearly four months in a year from June to September. Mid-July to mid-August is said to be the time when the glory of the national park is at its acme as the myriad flowers, which are the USP of the park, are at their full glamour. A group of seven, Bilal, Dinesh, Gaurav, Nishant, Paritosh, Suryakant and Utkarsh, belonging to six different states of India got together for the trek. It was quite a task to bring everyone on board. We had planned to visit VOF around August 15 but the monsoon rain was, as usual, battering the state with immense downpour around this time. Occurrences of landslides were commonplace. Finally keeping aside the risk, we went ahead with our plan with a couple of days as buffer for any hindrance in the trip.

Since Utkarsh was to join from Haridwar the next morning, the six of us left from Delhi at midnight on August 12 from Kashmiri Gate bus station, taking a bus to Haridwar. The Delhi station was teeming with tourists. We missed at least 5 buses until we found one with seats for the 6 of us. That bus broke down at Roorkee, an hour short of Haridwar. Luckily another bus was arranged in no time. But it had taken us nearly 6 hours for a 5 hour journey by bus and we reached just before 6 am.

August 13: Utkarsh was waiting for us at the bus station. He had enquired with the taxi union for the road ahead. We booked a taxi (Tata Sumo) from the taxi union stand just outside the Haridwar bus stand till Govindghat for INR 6550 and buckled up for another long leg of the journey. After having our usual bun-makhhan breakfast at Haridwar bus station along with a cup of tea at 7 am, the journey began. Together, we all felt pleased and excited for the journey. It was Suryakant’s first visit to the mountains and on certain occasions I thought he would jump out of the vehicle to take a wholesome view of the sprawling natural beauty. The windowpanes were small enough though. Sitting at the back of the vehicle was dizzying and whoever sat there felt like vomiting, so we kept switching places.

We did make several pit stops before we reached Pandukeshwar, 1.5 km ahead of Govindghat, at 5:30 pm. We lodged ourselves in two rooms at Pandukeshwar for INR 800 for the night with hot water costing dearly at INR 40 per bucket. It was getting dark and the valley looked formidable in the rains that followed. We freshened up and left to have dinner. A chat with locals helped clarify our doubts and concerns about the VOF. They mentioned that while the trek till Ghangharia (base camp for VOF and Hemkund Sahib) is 14 km long, one can take a taxi from Pandukeshwar to Pulna, from where the trek is only 11 km. A helicopter service is also available from Govindghat to Ghangharia that would curtail the 5 hour journey to 5 minutes but we were all set to embark on the trek the next morning.

August 14: It was raining when we marched ahead the next morning at 6:30 am. We hired a taxi from Pandukeshwar to Pulna for 4.5 km; it dropped us at Pulna for INR 400 within half an hour. Considering one also has to carry one’s luggage till Ghangharia, it was a good decision to take the taxi till Pulna. It not only saves significant effort but it does save a lot of time. One can buy make-do raincoats and small bags for low prices at Pulna. Our trek to Ghangharia began from here. We wore our raincoats/ ponchos to keep the light drizzle at bay. We also

donned our winter-wear as it was cold outside. Clicking photographs and taking selfies on the way, we moved forward with little difficulty. Suryakant, however, started showing signs of weariness in the initial kilometre itself. First he handed over his luggage to Dinesh and kept pace. Later, we put his luggage on a mule and he somehow managed to walk through the rest of the trek.

The hills offer amazing vistas and panoramas, from thick forests to open ridges with cascade of waterfalls. There are shops after regular intervals where one can eat, drink and catch a breath. But as one gains altitude, things start getting costlier for valid reason. The last stretch of around 4 km takes a toll and tests trekkers. We pulled ourselves together and reached Ghangharia at around 12 pm after an arduous trek of nearly 11 km. Many tourists had already flocked Ghangharia. We looked for hotels and got two rooms in two separate hotels. We were really tired and didn’t look further to get rooms in the same hotel. We all met for lunch again. Ghangharia is a small place meant to house tourists for the treks to the VOF and Hemkund Sahib (HS). A lot of tourists, mostly Sikhs, make a pilgrimage to HS. Two separate routes go to VOF and HS and one can’t and shouldn’t cover both the places in the same day. For us, VOF was the priority.

We had plenty of time after lunch and wondered if we should start trekking the VOF once today. But we chose not to as the VOF closes at 5 pm and then there was always the fear of rains getting harder. We rather decided to explore Ghangharia. In addition to housing several guest houses and restaurants, the place also houses a few medicine shops and a couple of clinics. During our exploration of Ghangharia, we got a chance to meet Mr. Raviraj Chauhan, who has been guiding tourists for more than 15 years in VOF and the surrounding areas. He was enthralled to interact with youngsters like us and describe the magnificence of the VOF’s flora and fauna. He showed us his prized collection of photographs of various terrestrial and avian fauna. He shared the plight of the environment around the VOF due to climatic disturbances, something which we also strongly believed. We bid goodbye as we left him to cater to his customers. Gaurav, Dinesh and I then climbed down to a waterfall, where I soaked my shoes but managed to take beautiful photographs.

August 15: What a morning! India’s Independence Day. Nestled in the hills, we felt independent ourselves. Gaurav, Bilal and I vacated our room. We all had a mediocre breakfast, packed parathas for lunch and left for the days’ trek to VOF at around 7 am. The park opens at around 7 am and we were there by 7:30 am. The VOF National Park (NP) is spread in 87.50 sq. km and as mentioned by one of the guards at the entrance of the NP, the trek within the park goes as far as 10-11 km. If one is planning to go that far in a single day, one must begin early with food packed for the long journey, as no food is available once one enters the NP. Indian citizens have to pay INR 150 on entering the NP, which is the cost for 3 days. We entered along with several other tourists to the NP. There is clearly marked trail and it passes through thickets, undergrowth, open areas, large trees and a number of waterfalls. Later that day we would get to know that this was the day when the NP received the highest footfall ever, 362 tourists visited VOF in just one day.

I had caught severe cold. One of my hands was taking photographs while the other was carrying a hankie serving my running nose. Bilal and Suryakant too were not very comfortable. But the magnificence of the place kept everyone going. Suryakant went back after some 4 km. The rest of us carried on further till we reached the Pushpawati River flowing in wide open area. The time was still

11: 30 am and it had just started to drizzle again. We could see the clouds enshrouding the valley just above us and the biting wind blew. We celebrated the insurmountable beauty of the valley taking lunch together. We silently ruminated over the spirit of the valley in the backdrop of the majestic Pushpawati River which bifurcated the resplendent flora in the foreground and the verdant mountains & cascading waterfalls in the background. Dinesh, Gaurav, Paritosh and Utkarsh continued further while Bilal and I decided to go back.

We saw a lot of people still climbing on our way back. Bilal and I climbed down and headed straight to have some tea and Maggi. We also booked another room, since we had left our previous room in the morning. We found a room close to the other room and booked it for INR 400. Signs of weariness were visible on everyone’s face when they came back. But the sense of achievement was more overpowering. Tiredness soon took over and everyone slept after a short while. After the exhausting journey, some people offer leg massage at a cost of INR 50-100. One such person also took Paritosh’s and my shoes to dry out. While the cost is high (INR 150 per pair to dry), you do need dry shoes. Others went for leg massages. We discussed the plan for tomorrow at dinner. Nobody seemed to come to consensus on going to HS, but it was anyways decided to trek to HS the next morning at 7 am.

16 August: It was raining incessantly. Paritosh and Gaurav were still sleeping. I too was never feeling well after that cold and I asked others to trek HS without me. But others also backed out. We thought it was better to climb down from Ghangharia to Govindghat. Within an hour and a half, everyone had had their breakfast and was ready to descend. We began the descent in the downpour and it almost never ceased completely even by the time we reached Pulna. We hired a cab till Joshimath and it took us there in an hour. From Joshimath we again hired a cab till Haridwar for INR 5500 and were there by 10 pm. We then had a sumptuous dinner and settled our accounts. It was just before 12 by that time. Dinesh and Suryakant stayed at Haridwar as they wanted to visit Rishikesh again while the five of us left for Delhi seeing an AC bus calling for passengers to Delhi. We reached Delhi by 5 am on 17^th August. INR 4000 was enough to see through the journey.

Since we had 4 more days of holidays, Bilal, Gaurav and I left for Pushkar, Ajmer and Jaipur on 18^th, which is another story for some other time.

Trek to Kheerganga

It has been long since I last visited the apple capital of India, Himachal Pradesh. It was in last June that I had been for an official trip for 15 days to incredible places in Kinnaur district including the visit to Nako village. My last visit was to the devbhoomi when I trekked Auli, Deoriyataal and Chopta. Since, I was still in the rhythm of trekking, I pondered over options ahead of me. Kheerganga appeared like a challenging yet a viable option. I gathered company of three more, including my younger brother, Akhil; my always eager to travel friend, Gaurav and another companion from college, Paritosh.

It being a 4-day extended vacation owing to Holi, Good Friday and then Saturday & Sunday, we had realized that it was going to be crowded at the time we reach Kheerganga. Thus we planned to start the trek as soon as we reach Bershaini and visit the other places later while returning from the Kheerganga trek. We boarded a bus from Kashmere gate, Delhi that would go till Manali but would get down before Manali to Bhuntar. We started at 5:40 pm on 23^rd and reached Bhuntar the next day at around 6:30 am. Bhuntar is the place from where one can go to the Kasol, Manikaran, and then to Bershaini, from where the trek to Kheerganga begins.

The bus from Bhuntar to Bershaini dropped us in Bershaini at around 10 am. We got freshened up in a small room and had parathas at the restaurant owned by the same guy who owned the rooms. At around 12 we were ready to leave for Kheerganga. The restaurant owner was kind enough to let us keep our luggage beside luggage of other trekkers. Paritosh still carried a heavy bag and Gaurav and Akhil carried smaller ones. I was lucky enough just to carry my precious camera with me. And we set out for the trek.

The route is well laid out. Depending on the time of the year, you may find other passionate trekkers. We also found many. The first impression of the valley, however, was a disaster. Construction of a dam is defacing the verdant surroundings. But once you cross the dam, the views of the trek are captivating. Confluence of the Parvati River & the Tosh River to the left and ponies feeding on grass to the right seemed picture perfect. A naked log stood as high as I could see. The first leg began with a moderate ascend. It goes on till Nakthan. Till Nakthan, most people reach comfortably. At Nakthan, there are boarding and lodging arrangements as well as sufficient choice of food and beverage. One can opt to refuel here. 

As you proceed, you are a spectator to the miscellany of nature’s color palette. Landscape demonstrating hues of pink, green, blue, yellow, white, beige, brown is quite common.  The second leg of the journey goes on till Rudranag. Rudranag is a sacred place with a small enclosed waterfall of religious stature. There are no options to refuel here, but it certainly is the place for rejuvenation. A rickety wooden bridge against the backdrop of the fierce sound of gurgling emerald green waterfall cascading from atop the mountains would catch you breathless. It is impossible not to halt at Rudranag and ruminate over our toylike standing against nature.

Moving ahead, there are limited options for food. And understandably as one goes higher, the cost of food and drinks gets escalated, so it’s better to carry something to munch on from below. I would suggest refilling the water bottles from the running streams and waterfalls; as they are one of the purest forms of water.

After Rudranag starts the most onerous section of the trek. The trek through dense forest awaits. Tall deodar trees don’t allow major portion of sunlight to creep in the woods. The trek begins to get steeper. And you also start to get tired, especially if you are burdened with bags. But this leg offers unparalleled beauty. Lush appearance of flora around you is mesmerizing. The trees appear from an ancient era. Some burnt, some fallen, and some with huge cavities; all telling you different stories. Simultaneously, numerous voices of avifauna seek for your attention. Recurring streams also announce their ubiquity. You have to get going. We too did; stopping often to catch our breath and create a mind map of the surrealistic beauty of nature we never get to see in our fast paced city lives.

You feel a sense of strong achievement on reaching the top. The mountains now open out into meadows where locals have pitched in large tented arrangements for food and stay. You hike more towards the top and will get to see an ashram which has further staying arrangements and just above it is the natural sulfur hot water pool. It is truly a blessing after an arduous trek of nearly 15 km, which took us nearly 4.5 hours.

We hurriedly looked for a room at the top as many people had gathered on the top. Luckily, we found one wherein somehow the four of us adjusted ourselves. We had maggie at the restaurant and jumped into the pool to experience one of the most restoring baths ever. The hot sulfur water is supposed to have medicinal properties. It’s quite obvious. After such a heavy trek, the bath was magical. It removed all pain and anxieties. We stayed in for nearly 40 minutes and came out to have a despicable dish of rice and rajma. But we had something and managed to sleep somehow for the rest of the night.

The next morning, we left Kheerganga at around 8:30 in the morning and reached at around 1 pm to Bershaini. We proceeded to Tosh and Manali the next two days. Succinctly put, the whole trip was amazing. We trekked nearly 38 km spread over three days. This trip surely made me stronger, both physically as well as mentally.

Day 5: Winter Expedition to Auli, Deoriyatal & Chopta

We had called up a vehicle to drive us till Ukhimath from where we hoped to get a bus till Rudraprayag. The driver was a local and was driving quite tactfully in those conditions. We reached Ukhimath safe and sound. From Ukhimath we were supposed to go till Rudraprayag. But the jeep we sat in dropped us short and we had to change another bus before we reached Rudraprayag. We had tea in Rudraprayag and caught a bus till Haridwar. It went on quite smoothly till Nandprayag where he asked us to switch to another bus.

But this was not the end to the misery of returning. On catching a bus to Delhi from Haridwar, it started making strange noises and went dead half an hour after it had started. Passengers were stranded on the roads at around 8 pm and the driver and the bus conductor were making all efforts to call another bus from the nearest depot and tackling the ire of the passengers simultaneously. Luckily within another 15 minutes another bus had come and everyone was making mayhem to grab the seats. We also grabbed suitable seats and left for Delhi. We reached at around 2 am on 27 Dec, Sunday to Kashmere gate from where we took an auto and reached back to the home sweet home.

 

The journey was as much a reunion of the best of the friends as much as another getaway from the commotion of our daily lives. With a lot of planning and successful execution with ad-hoc management in between, we managed to make the trip a successful one. With many learning and more plans in mind for future, it's time to start saving trinkets to accomplish more of such expeditions.

Day 4: Winter Expedition to Auli, Deoriyatal & Chopta

Day 4: 25 December 2015 - Deoriyatal, Chopta, Tunganath, & Chandrashila

Gaurav had shaken everyone at ungodly morning hours when he woke up to go to the woods to attend nature's call. Everyone cursed him for that. He was mumbling something on coming back but nobody bothered and went back to sleep. I got up to hear Utkarsh yelling how cold he felt the last night and that snow had also permeated inside the tent. And we did see that too. We checked that temperature had dropped to -7 ^oC the last night. Yet we survived. Everyone gradually got up to behold the panorama around. We were all stunned. It was a picture perfect setting. A lake at the center of the landscape, iridescent tents stationed here and there on the undulating terrain, tall pine trees encircling this arena and the magnificent snow clad Chaukhamba peaks encircling in concentric circle to the overall landscape made us feel like kings of the mountains.

We found a machaan closeby and climbed atop along with few others to give testimony to the beauty of the place. By that time, sunshine was already sparkling over the peaks in the distance. We clicked photos ardently and came down to roam around just a little more in the woods. This would also ensure finding a lonely place to attend to nature's call. When I reached to fetch water from the lake, I could see that the edges of the lake were frozen. The water to be used was freezing. But we had to make do with it and somehow we all managed it. But my hands got frozen again and was running frantically everywhere just to find some any kindle of fire burning anywhere. Finally I could find an almost extinguished fire and managed to get my hands warm enough.

Paying INR 700 to Raghuvirji for the tent and also INR 150 per person to the forest officers to use the place, we vacated our tent and took our only bag with us. I had not even taken photos properly because of my frozen hands. Thus when we left our tents and went for breakfast, I had to come back again to capture more photos. And I am glad I came back. You could see the ones I took while coming back.

We had befriended the guys at the canteen. They were serving delicious food there. However, that didn’t mean there was any concession coming our way. Bringing food at such heights is a pain and then staying, cooking and serving your guests there is more so. These guys have been handling things very well and made the guests feel satisfied with their service and innocent attitude. We asked one of them if he could connect us with a driver that can take us to Chopta from Sari village and he contacted one and passed on his contact number. We paid him 1000 bucks for four persons including the last night's dinner & tea and this morning's breakfast & tea. We thanked the staff paying them some tip for their generosity and started climbing down.

Getting down, we were the usual lads with high spirits and fantastic energy levels. We got down quickly, had some more tea and left in the cab we had hired to Chopta taking our luggage from the guest house. Chopta is not far from Sari village if you choose the shorter route. It won't take more than an hour. But the only problem is that it might be covered with snow for several months. And it turned out to be so. The cab driver left us some 4 km away from Chopta before his van had started skidding on snow (I am sure he skidded it intentionally merely to frighten us but that situation was indeed risky). Now we had to trek all the way up on frozen trails to reach Chopta carrying all our luggage.

Someone showed us the trail to follow to reach Chopta and we moved merrily on the tricky ice laden roads. Everything was covered in ice there. It was getting difficult to grip the surface. But we had to move on. Helping each other on the way, sometimes encouraging and sometimes taunting each other, we somehow reached a tiny place called Baniyakund, still a couple of kilometres from Chopta. But we knew we had to get rid of our baggage if the slopes were to be outsmarted and reach the place on time. Then we concurred on our next plan of action.

We actually wanted to scale both Tunganath and Chandrashila the same day and come back to wherever we were stationed for the day, but we had realized we were far away from there. We agreed that it'd better to station at Baniyakund itself leaving our bags there, eat something before we resume the journey again. We made Baniyakund our base for the rest of the trek. We rented two cottages and kept our luggage there. We only had some maggi to save time, rented snow boots and proper hand gloves (for INR 200 per person) to make the trek smoother and left off towards Chopta.

Luckily for us the sun was shining and it made the chill of the weather much more manageable. The four of us kept walking looking for shortcuts, which actually were much smaller but surely consumed more energy. We happily mounted several slopes to circumvent the meandering driveways. In fact, we surpassed Chopta that way. We rollicked in the snow, made snowman, whirled down the snow slopes and captured the every moment in photographs.

 

We met only a few people on the way till we reached Tunganath where a few travellers had made their base. We had crossed Tunganath and were on our way to Chandrashila when it started to appear that we were reaching our limits and hunger made Dinesh and me incapable to move ahead. Then we realized we had already walked almost 5 km on the difficult terrain without much food since morning. Plus it was getting dark and it won't have been possible to reach the Chandrashila summit and come back to our base at Baniyakund with any trace of light to help us on the way. With heavy heart we conceded that we should go back to Tunganath, have some food before we start climbing down to our base.

It was getting even colder. The water that was served had frozen. Even the water kept to wash our hands was frozen. We had to ask the hotel owner to heat up some water and give us something to drink at least which he politely obliged. Filling our tummies, we left for the rest of the journey back to Baniyakund but we were never short of making it any fun. We spent some peaceful moments relaxing near the bonfire pondering over how much to wonder on the vastness of infinity of the skies. The caretaker at the cottage, Harish, poured his heart out in cooking and offering us the delicious food. This was yet another instance to cement our appreciation of the pahari hospitality towards their guests. This is certainly one of the aspects of the whole journey which has made an indelible imprint on our minds.

The switching off of lights running so far on the generator was an indication that 9 pm was the time when you should be into your beds in the hills. We also chose the confines of our blankets before the cold froze us. The next morning we paid the caretaker for the tents, the food he had prepared, all the equipment he had provided and for his diligent hospitality. It costed us nearly INR 2500 for four people but every penny was sure worth spending.