Flowers from the himayas

In one of the posts about my Kedarnath trip, I had posted pictures of wild flowers we saw on our way. I posted the pictures as they were taken - the reason being the context. Pijush had suggested cropping the pictures to focus on the object under consideration. Following this useful input, what I did was crop all the flower pictures, and create a collage of them. An here we are!

(Click on the picture for a larger view)

Himalayan Adventure - The End

The story of this adventure in the himalayas concludes here. We started back from Kedarnath after lunch, and aimed to cover as much distance as possible. We made a stop at the picurusque town of Srinagar, though we could not explore it since by the time we reached it was quite dark, and we started early morning the next day. We had little [and little, in the sense of the word ;-)] compensations ...

The flower starts developing from the stem
The leaves become flowers, or the flowers become leaves?

And then they grow into these beauties
(The diameter of each full-grown flower was about 1 cm)

And then there were these blue belles
These were still tinier - about 3 mm

The view from the rooftop of the hotel -
The clouds, the mountains and the river

Himalayan Adventure - VIII

While climbing up, by the time we reached the region of flower-laden slopes, we were too tired to take photos, or even to admire them. But when we were descending, we had just started when we found those flowers. Thus, for the last post in this "series", I have pictures of flora and fauna (though mostly the former) we saw on our way down.

Himalayan Adventure - VII

I prefer to post pictures either in chronological order, or by logical group. However, the previous post was out of sequence. :-) I had not yet finished with the details of the climb up!

The path up ...
... by the side of Mandakini

Again ... multitude of waterfalls

In the upper regions, the slopes were full of tiny, colorful flowers!

And the mountains stood majestic
with a halo of clouds

By the time we reached up, we were almost dead on our feet, and walking each foot was a torture. We had planned to stay in GVMN hotel, though we had not made advanced bookings. When we finally managed to find the hotel, we found that it was deserted! Searching for another one was demoralizing, the least.
A sort of village has developed around the temple, purely to cater to the visitors. Since there are a lot of pilgrims, a number of dharamshalas (rest houeses) have developed. These cater primarily (for a charge, of course) to people from a particular community or region. We managed to find decent rooms in one of these, a Punjab and Sindh Awas. There are small shops, selling articles required for offering prayers, woollens and souvenirs. In the winters, the access paths are closed, and so does the temple. At this time, the rest houses ans the shops close down as well, and the owners go back to their native places.
After resting for a while, and having some hot tea, we went for an evening darshan. There was quite a crowd in the temple, being the time of the arti. And we were pestered by the priests, and badly hounded by the beggars and 'sadhus', which was quite a turn off.
Back at the dharamshala, we requested for simple food - dal, roti and rice. Rather than having it in our rooms, we decided to have it in the kitchen itself, by the fire. Mats were arranged round the cooking fire, and it was a nice experience, having food in the traditional style, after a long long time.

Next morning, we planned to have an early darshan, and start back as early as possible. In the morning, some of us got up earlier than the others, and ventured out to admire the mountains. Kedarnath is the confluence of the rivers Swargdwara and Mandakini, and the source of Mandakini. In the early morning, the sky was very clear and blue, and the confluence of the river so calm and peacful, despite the force with which the water flowed.

The confluence
To the left is Swargdwara, to the right, Mandakini
One can see the glaciers as they melt into these streams

As the snow melts ...

Closer look at the glaciers

Far away from the maddening crowd

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.