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.

... but the memories are there to stay

Well, all the details of the trip have been logged, but I have some more pictures to share.

A local kid playing with water

Wild flower - I still dont know its name!

Vegetation amongst rocks