Uttarakhand — Chapter V
It was my fifth time in Uttarakhand in October 2016, and I’ve got to admit it has become my favorite state outside of my home state of Karnataka.
Within two months of the last trek which I did in June 2016, I got a mail from India hikes the largest community of trekkers in India if I would be interested in volunteering for the IIM Mountain Challenge.
It was a weird situation, because I had just been to a trek and convincing work and family would take some doing. Free trek on the table certainly helped in that regard. Had a quick interview to make sure I am not a chump and then I was in.
Going in all alone by itself put me out of the comfort zone in the preparatory phases compared to the last time when it was the three of us. Ticket bookings to salvaging all the things that need to be taken on a cold-ish trek.
I optimized for money for my travel plans, which meant a lot of switching between modes of transports and a healthy doze of down time.
So after catching an uber-pool, airport bus, flight, Delhi city cab (cause roaming internet won’t work, so no uber), train, Haryana Roadways and finally auto, I was at my Rishikesh Hostel from namma Bengaluru. This took close to 20 hours in all.
Met up fellow volunteers as soon I landed in and we were all set for briefings from the next day on.
Day one was briefing and orientation about the program. Had some down time so went by the banks of river ganga had our legs dipped in it for a bit. Then walked around the alley ways of Rishikesh still untouched by the commercialism that seems to have stricken most religious/spiritual destinations in our country. Went near Swargashram which had hosted The Beatles some fifty years ago. Made our way to the chotiwala, apparently this really famous eatery joint which has been split between relatives many times over.
Next day morning we set out for our basecamps, we left at 5AM we had to travel all the way to the village of Sankri
We reached the village of Sankri at about 4 PM. It is an idyllic village of about 100 homes at about 6000 ft altitude.
The Next day we had a recon trek for the volunteers where we went up to camp 1, called Juda ka Talab : literally meaning “Separated pond” and returned to Sankri. This was to get volunteers acquainted with the route so that it isn’t a surprise for us when we are leading our teams. Had bit of a heat related exhaustion-dizziness due to sitting too long in the sun without hydrating, but was able to recover and get back to Sankri.
Next day evening is when our batch of students from IIM Indore arrived, I had to lead a team of eight.
Day 1 started was trek from Sankri to Juda Ka Talab, from about 6000 ft to 9000ft with around 4 kms of hiking involved. Unfortunately one of the students in my batch was dealing with a sore ankle which was sprained recently and couldn’t negotiate the rocky terrain and had to turn back. That left a sour taste, but health is paramount in the hills. We set off with the remaining 7 people. It took around 3 hours to climb up. The trek started quite late in the morning, around 0930 and the sun was beating down hard. It was quite pleasing personally to motivate the tail end of the team to keep at it. Incidentally they were the first to complete this section of the trek.
The evening was filled with a couple of interesting events which involved cooking in the wild and up-cycling of the garbage.
That night got really chilly and the dew precipitation was coming down really hard, so much so that it looked like it had rained. The dogs who had accompanied us from the village through the trek were in full force at night. Apparently one person heard some lady ghost noises at night, but since it was just one person I would put that into dream category.
Next day morning was a relatively relaxed start. Left for Camp 2 at 0830, which was the Kedarkantha base camp (KK Base) at 11300 ft. It was a relatively short trek distance wise ~2.5kms but it was pretty steep a climb, which was helped by the fact that we were walking through the woods for the most part, so the sun wasn’t as big an issue as it was on the previous day.
We reached the KK base about 1100 hours, after a quick rest and light lunch, we set off for the Kedarkantha peak, which is at 12500 ft. Soon after we started the trek we were clear of the tree line and after a short stretch of rhododendron bushes it an open, grassy and stony uphill climb.
We reached the peak at about 1530 after a climb of 2 hours plus. Once again it was a great personal pleasure making sure everyone in my team had made it to the top and no one had quit.
Kedarkantha offers a 360 degree of peaks all around, since it wasn’t winter yet, only 4–5 peaks in sight were snow covered. One of the peaks in view was Swarga-arohini which literally means stairway to heaven. It is said that it is from here that the Pandavas tried to get to heaven after the epic Mahabharata had concluded.
We got back to the base at about 1700, and I headed right to my tent where I unfortunately had to sleep alone for the night since one of my fellow volunteers had taken ill.
That night offered the best view of milky way I have seen in my life. It was so so majestic to view, blessed with clear skies one could see the complete expanse of the milky way cutting right across the horizon, made me forget about the cold for a wee bit and contemplate the meaning of life.
That night was the chilliest night I have ever experienced. Staying all alone in a tent for 3 is a recipe for cold freeze. Especially when outside temperatures were in the negative, compounded by the wind chill which was making it worse. I kept waking up incessantly at night, had to go out twice to relieve myself ( thanks milky way for keeping me company there). That night I will remember for a long time.
Woke up in the morning to find tents flaps with a sheet of ice on it, the grass surrounding us was covered in ice too.
On Day 3, after a quick back packing game, we started on our way back to Sankri. Descending is always dangerous, 80% of trekking injuries happen while descending, and I took my own sweet time doing this.
Right below KK Base there was a frozen stream which was making the passage hard. It took some time to get everyone through that section. Apart from that we had a pretty safe climb down, started from KK Base at about 0900 and reached Sankri by 1400. Had an egg and orange for company on the way down, but the hunger at the end drove me to Sankri.
Had a pretty relaxed evening after, though it was still chilly. Had a great sense of satisfaction on having completed the trek, firstly all by myself and secondly having helped a team of students summit to the top, when one of them could have very easily given up without constant motivation.
Had a weird little incident during debrief, when one of my team mates professed love for me for helping them out, but without context most people didn’t get it and our trek leader misheard it as “Lots of love for Pune” and tried to make a point, only for everyone to realize it was Puneeth, not Pune. That was hilarious, embarrassing and gratitude filled all at once. Never thought will be using all those adjectives at the same time for an event, EVER.
The next day was drive back to Rishikesh, pretty non eventful except for my cough to get more exasperated and dry. Had to recover from that late at night to make sure I was able to get to raft in the morning.
Started around 6 AM for rafting. Got in with part of my team, other volunteers and one of our trek leads. Had to travel upstream for about 12 kms to get to this place called Shivpuri. There we went in to the river bed, got our paddles and boat. After a brief introductory session were on our way. The water was chilly until the first splash, and the rapids were amazing. Was thrown off balance a few times.The raft lead prompted us to get into the river at sections where it was not that violent, did it every time and that was great fun.
Amidst all this was an ugly commercial section of the rafting where there was overpriced hot snacks and beverages on sale, and just to make sure people feel cold, they had construed up a “Cliff” which was like a dozen feet tall for people to jump into water from and buy hot beverages.
After the commercial stop which was totally unnecessary, we set off again. More rapids, not as violent as before soon made way for a peaceful river which lead us into the town of Rishikesh. We passed under the iconic bridges of Lakshman Jhula and Ram Jhula before it all came to an end. All in all it was one satisfying trek/volunteering/rafting experience.
One the way back, stopped by in Delhi and met up with couple of friends to cap a memorable 10 days or so.
One of the major takeaways from the whole thing was reinforcing my love of trekking, cold weather (only way I can show off my football scarves) and mountains.
Minute possibility of instilling that in one more person made all the effort and stepping out of my comfort zone totally worth it.
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