Journey To The Mysterious Lake

 

Roopkund

Hi Readers,

Few months back i thought of taking a break from this hectic life. I was not able to decide what to do so i googled “Exciting thing to do in life”, i know thats lame but still 😀 . I got lots of suggestions out of which ‘Trekking’ caught my attention. At that very moment i decided i’ll b going on a trek. Now the point was where should i go because i haven’t done anything like this before and had no idea about it. So i googled again “Top 5 trekking destinations in India” and i got few options out of which i found Roopkund the most interesting one.

Roopkund Lake is a mysterious lake where you can still find skeletons which are about 200 years old. There are lots of different stories about that, no one knows which is true. But still i was very excited about Roopkund and after seeing the pictures on google it was final that i am going to Roopkund.

I started looking for vendors who organized treks in Uttarakhand region and i came across some vendors like India Hikes, Trek The Himalayas(TTH) and Thrillophilia. After comparing the rates i decided to go with Thrillophilia. They were charging Rs9700(including taxes) which was a good deal as compared to other two vendors .India Hikes charged about 11000+taxes plus other transportation charges, and TTH charged 10500+taxes. I choose 8th October – 15th October batch and booked my slot. Our trekking was planned and organized by Uttarakhand Trip Trek(UTT).

I reached Delhi on 7th October in the morning then later that day i took Uttarakhand Sampark kranti whose departure time was 4 PM for “Kathgodam”. I reached Kathgodam at 10:30 PM and stayed in a hotel that night. The next morning Joshi ji(our driver) picked us up from the station. At our pick up point i met other trekkers who were in my group. We were all from different cities, so we had a quick introduction and our tour started.

It was a beautiful ride amidst the mountains and rivers. It took about 11 hours (210 km) to reach our base camp which was at “Loharjung”. We reached there at 7 PM. There we met our tour in-charge(Pradeep Joshi), trek leader(Nathu Bhai) and other staff members. They briefed us about the next days plan and do’s and dont’s.

DAY 1  (9th October 2016) Altitude gain (8200 ft):

Today our trek started , plan was to trek for 13 Km and take a halt at “Didina Village”. It was 6 km plain land trek, 1 km descent, and then 6 km steep ascent. The 6 km steep ascent was very tiring and difficult but it was worth climbing because the views were beautiful and splendid..  We went through dense forest, crossed many streams, took detours, altogether we were having the best time. At about 3 PM we reached our camp site. We were offered brass juice, it tasted like corex(syrup) :D. After that we had our lunch and then at about 5 PM we were told to go in the forest and bring dry woods for camp fire. It was a nice experience to do something which i never imagined i will do in my entire life. After half an hour we were all back with the woods. We arranged the woods and lit the camp fire. There were other groups whom we invited to our site for the camp fire, It was fun. The day ended here.

Day 2 (10 October 2016)  Altitude gain (11000 ft)

Today the plan was to trek for 12 Km and take a halt at “Bedni Bugyal”. We started at 8 AM after our tea and breakfast. It was 7 Km ascent and then 5 Km gradual ascent. Today’s trek was difficult because of the steepness and also we were about to gain a huge altitude. At high altitude air becomes thin and so its very common that people might suffer from minor headaches and some can even suffer from AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness). But luckily in my team no one had to suffer from any of these. We reached “Ali Bugyal” at about 2:30 PM. At this point onwards, there were no trees due to lack of oxygen and that why these places are called Bugyal. We were given our packed lunch(Paratha,sabzi and boiled eggs). We took some rest and then again started our trek towards Bedni Bugyal. It was about 4 Km away from this point. Suddenly we were informed that weather is about to change and it might rain and so we have to hurry. We were about 500 meters away from our camp site and it started snowing. I haven’t seen snow in my entire life, so it was a majestic view for me. We started running toward our tents and within 10 minutes the whole green land turned into a snow covered land. It was an awesome view. But again it was very very cold. The temperature drop at this place at night was approx zero degree. We were given our sleeping bags after dinner. We slept at about 8:30 PM.

DAY 3 (11th October 2016) Altitude gain (12800 ft)

Today the plan was to trek for 6 km and take a halt at “Patar Nachauni”. It was an easy trek of 6 Km. It was mostly plain land trek and sometimes gradual ascent. It started snowing after couple of hours we started our trek. We had no option but to walk while it was snowing because there was no place for shelter. It was again a mind blowing experience to trek while snowfall. We reached our camp site at about 2 PM. Our tents were not ready so we roamed around and explored the place.We came back after an hour had our lunch. The day ended here.

DAY 4 (12th October 2016) Altitude gain (14100 ft)

Today the plan was to trek for 5 km and take a halt at Bhagwabasa. It was a 2 km steep ascent and then 3 km gradual ascent. Today the altitude gain was huge so we were instructed to cover our heads and wear lots of warm cloths. On our way we took a halt at Kalu Vinayak temple which was at the end of our 2 km ascent trail. It was a beautiful temple and from there we were able to get a very closer look of Mt. Trishul, Nanda Devi and Chaukhamba (Mountains of Himalayan Range). We reached our camp site at about 4 PM. We took our lunch and after few hours it started snowing. The temperature drop that night was -5 degree. It was very very cold. Next morning we had to start our trek at 3:30 AM in the dark, so that we can reach Roopkund on time and see the sunrise.

DAY 5 (13th October 2016) Altitude gain (16000 ft)

We started at 3:30 AM. It was dark but the moon light was there for us to see the trail and also we carried our head torch. Today it was totally snow trail of about 3.5 km. The snow was very slippery, it was good that i had a good grip in my shoes otherwise it would have been impossible to walk on snow, and also my trekking pole was life saver. We reached summit at 5 AM and saw the sunrise. It was a magical view, it was hard for me to believe that i am actually seeing a view like that. It was a very proud feeling, that i completed the trek and reached the summit. The view from there was awesome. We also went to “Junar gali” pass which is about 16300 ft. Mostly people don’t get to go there because of bad weather,  but we were lucky. From junar gali you get a very very close view of the Himalayan ranges. Then we started our descent at 6:30 AM. Descent on snowy trail was a bit difficult because of constant slipping, but we made it. We reached Bhagwabasa base camp by 10 AM. The plan was to descent to Bedni Bugyal, so we had our lunch and started our descent of 11 Km. We reached Bedni Bugyal at 4:30 PM.

DAY 6 (14th October 2016)

This was our last day in the Himalayas.We started our descent from Bedni Bugyal. The plan was to trek 13 Km, reach “Wann Village” and from there ride back to “Loharjung” base camp. On our way down we took a halt at “Neel Ganga” river bed. After a short detour we again resumed our descent. We reached “Ran ka Dhar” at about 2 PM, had our packed lunch over there and started for Wann. We reached Wann Village at about 4 PM, from there we were taken to our base camp in Loharjung which was 14 km away.

DAY 7 (15th October 2016)

We left for Kathgodam at 7 AM. It was again a 11 hours ride. We reached Kathgodam at 5:30 PM. My train was scheduled at 8:30 PM, Ranikhet Express.

And this was the end of journey. Hope you liked it. 🙂

If you want to see the pictures i took, send me your mail id’s . I have shared the images on google drive. Also you can see the pictures on Facebook, just send me a request 🙂