Himalayan Adventure - VI

Early next morning, we woke up to a clear day, and caught beautiful views of the snow covered peaks.

The sun rising over the Mighty Himalayas
A part of the Kedarnath shrine in the foreground

Snow covered peaks in all their glory

The Temple of Kedarnath
As viewed from the backside
(It was impossible to get a complete front view)

Imposing entrance of the temple
Himalayas in the background look enchanting

Early morning activity

Devotees exiting from the side entrance

An ancient temple dedicate to Lord Shani

Himalayan Adventure - V

Moving on ...

Mahadev Falls - perhaps the biggest of 'em all

Mandakini flows down with force
We struggle to move up and up
(The cluster of shops on the upper left corned marks the center of the 14 km journey)


Where'd he come from ...
Where'd he go ??

Perfect Pose
He stood still and stared at me while I took his snap

Coming straight from the heavens

Himalayan Adventure - IV

As mentioned in the previous post, we made an overnight stop at Guptkashi. We planned to leave very early morning, so at to reach Kedarnath as early in the morning as possible, so that the climb up would be easier.

Guptkashi - still asleep in early hours

We continued the journey along Mandakini, crossing a few more confluences, like Nandprayag and Sonprayag. As we gained altitude, the vegetation became greener and denser, the waterfalls became more frequent, and roads became worse. The view was breathtaking, but we could not stop to take photographs, since the roads being narrow, there was hardly any space to park the vehicle on the side, and morover, we were running short of time. We were advised by our driver that we would need about 5-6 hours to climb the 14 kms stretch, and since it started raining by 2 pm or so, and it got dark after 4 pm, we should aim to start the climb by 9 am. However, we reached the base point, GauriKund only around that time. There is a motorable road till Gaurikund; Kedarnath is at a distance of 14 kms from here, and the options to cover this distance is to walk, take a pony, or take a palaquin. We visited the temples at Gaurikund, had breakfast, and started the climb rather late than planned. The sun was up and shining with force, and it was quite hot, making the steep climb much more difficult.

There is little to describe about the climb, except that we were soon tired, and after three kms or so, we had to oush ourselves real hard, and by the time we reached the top, we were almost dead on our feet :-) As for the rest, the sights were amazing, and the pictures can do the talking better. :-)

Colorful lizard with blue limbs!
It merged perfectly with the rocks!!

The first waterfall we walked beside
There was a rainbow at the foot
(though we could not take a picture of the rainbow)

Another waterfall on the other side of the hill
We could see it fall all the way from the top!

And yet another one ....

A million streams ...

Himalayan Adventure III

Since we still had some time left from our leave, we thought of making the best use of it, and visiting another place in the area which was still accessible. The only option turned out to be Kedarnath. Although there is a road that goes to Kedarnath from Chamoli, we were advised against using that one, since that was not so well maintained, and could result in long delays if we got stuck there. We were advised to go back to Rudraprayag, and take the national highway from there.

We stopped at another waterfall/landslide on the way, which we had crossed hurriedly on our way up. We found these rocks particularly interesting – the one word they brought to our mind was – Muffin!!

We were stuck in the way due to yet another landslide. Although they gave us a lot of bother, they also gave an opportunity to take in beautiful sights at leisure.

Amid all of the chaos, we also managed to have a flat tire. While the driver was busy replacing the tire, some of the people played a game of throwing a rock farthest in the valley.

We retraced our steps (or treads, rather) to Rudraprayag, and followed the course of Mandakini this time. It was quite dark by the time we reached Guptkashi, where we stopped for the night. The debacle of the planned tour had made the mood as dark and gloomy as the clouds!

Himalayan Adventure - II

Early morning, we started from Rudraprayag, which is the confluence of Alaknanda and Mandakini rivers, and continued the journey along the Alaknanda. As we gained altitude, waterfalls and landslides were seen more frequently. Especially after crossing Karanprayag (where Alaknanda meets Pindar), there was a minor landslide every 50 meters or so, and bigger one every 100 meters. There were two or three which blocked the way enough to cause us to halt for some time.

This is one of the waterfall-slide on the road (and we encountered quite a few like it).

The fall was really strong; no wonder it brought down all these rocks.

After causing all this chaos, the stream continues to flow non-chalantly.

When we reached Chamoli, we found that the police had blocked the way, and were not allowing traffic to pass since landslides on the way had already caused a lot of traffic jam ahead. We spent two anxious hours, deliberating on the next course of action, over the breakfast. After this time, we were finally allowed to proceed, with a caution that the vehicles would be stopped at the next town, Pipalkoti.

Crossing bad roads, and more landslides, we managed to reach Pipalkoti by noon. There was a large, flat ground there, where all the vehicles were instructed to park. We learnt that there was a major landslide in this town, but we could cross that on foot, and take one of the local taxis on the other side of the slide, and use it to get to our destination. We repacked our bags, selecting the bare necessities, leaving the rest in the taxi, and walked about 2 kms, only to find the way completely blocked.

A path was cleared only sufficient to walk on, after a few hours, while we waited in the hot afternoon sun. However, there were more landslides on the way to Joshimath, apart from this one; in some places the road had caved in completely. It would be some days before the vehicular traffic could be restored on the roads. One opinion was to cross the landslides on foot, and using the cabs caught in between, to cover the distances between the slides. The officials announced that one might have to walk almost 19 kms before being able to find a cab to go to Joshimath, and even then there was no certainty of find a transport, since supplies to the higher regions were also cut off.

After long discussion and debate, and lot of sadness, we abandoned the plan - we had neither the energy to walk 19 (or probably 38 kms) apart from the distance we aimed to trek, and nor the time, since we were sure to get delayed if we covered all this distance on foot. And thus, destiny ensured that my dream of visiting Valley of Flowers is going to remain a dream.

Himalayan adventure

I have a long cherished dream to visit Valley of Flowers. It comprises about 3o sq. km. of area in the Himalayas, which blooms with beautiful and rare flowers, growing wild, for all of about 40 days in a year. A plan to go there finally materialized in August, combining the Independence Day holiday with the weekend, and taking two days off, thus giving us a total of 5 days. The planned itinerary for our group of six was:

Tue: Take a night train from Delhi to Haridwar, reaching early morning
Wed: Pre-arranged taxi to pick us at Haridwar, and leave us at Joshimath or Govindghat by evening
Thu: Reach Govindghat, and trek 14 kms to Ghangharia
Fri: Trek 6 kms to VoF, and back to Ghangharia
Sat: Trek to Hemkund Sahib, and back through Ghangharia to Govindghat
Sun: Back to Rishikesh, and take overnight train to Delhi

The plan looked rather ambitious, but we never realized beforehand how much way off would we be! And the following details and pictures would describe what actually took place!!

We reached Haridwar after some adventure, delayed by more that three hours. As we crossed Haridwar, we could see the signs of a very recent flood in the river Ganga. We were apprehensive of the landslides in the higher regions, but there was a seasoned traveller and trekker in our group, who assured us that if landslides happen on this route, it was cleared within 2-3 hours by the Border Roads Org., which maintained the highway. Our fears put to rest, we enjoyed the beautiful weather and the scenery.

The mountains were lush green, due to the rains, and the entire route lay along the river Ganga and its tributaries - the rivers Ganga/ Alaknanda/ Mandakini were our constant companions after we crossed Rishikesh.


Many waterfalls, small and large, crossed the mountain side, some of them falling right on the road. Initially we were enchanted by them, but later some of them caused us a lot of problem.



A short distance from Rishikesh is a place called Kaudiyala, where we stopped for breakfast. The river is very wide here, as at Rishikesh. The current does not look strong, but it is actually very strong in the rains, rendering it unsafe to raft in this season. The rafting camps close down towards the end of April, when the rains start.

A little while later, we encountered our first landslide. Although a JCB and a bulldozer had been mobilized and were working on it from two ends, it took them almost five hours to clear the slide. Kilometers long queues of vehicles formed on both sides of the slide. While we waited in the hot afternoon for the way to be cleared, this black insect with golden trimmings caught our fancy.

There was another small landslide on the way, at which we had to wait for a little less than an hour. By late afternoon, we reached Devprayag. Devprayag, which meangs "holy confluence" is where Alaknanda and Bhagirathi meet to form the holy river Ganga. "Prayag" means confluence of rivers, and are considered as sacred places. Along this route, there are several "prayag's" - Karanprayag, Rudraprayag, Sonprayag, Nandprayag - all of these are holy cities, where tributaries of the Ganga meet.

We had a beautiful view of the confluence at Devprayag. We followed the course of Alaknanda from here, and reached RudraPrayag (the confluence of Alaknanda and Mandakini) by late evening - due to the delays along the way, we could manage to cover less than half the distance we had planned.