Mystery lake-Roopkund

As far as trips are concerned, i seem to be doing good this year as this was my fourth trip.
Roopkund has been on my to-do list for quite some time now as firstly its a proper trip involving couple of days of hard trekking and secondly there's a mystery angle to it.I guess the latter reason was more intriguing.

This time it was the Birlasoft gang.



We guys started on 15 June from office . Journey was full of problems. Our qualis filter got clogged as a result the latter half of journey was full of jerky rides. With much faith in god we managed to pull till rishikesh where we got the filter replaced. Stayed at a ashram that day. Woke up next day with sore backs . Braced ourselves for the next leg of journey till Lohajang .
Started early morning on 16 June.

Enroute we passed through Devprayag where the two rivers Alaknanda and Bhagirathi converge to form the almighty Ganga. Bhagirathi emerges from the mouth of gangotri glacier(gaumukh,ahead of Gangotri) while alaknanda rises from glacial snouts of Bhagirath and Satopanth glaciers ahead of Badrinath.

Notice the difference in colors of both rivers.



We got stuck in one of the worst traffic nightmares , this one lasted 2-3 hours. Took some random shots to kill the time.
Dont worry this guy's head was not decapitated, just the way he was lying down to kill time like us :)



Finally the traffic crawled and we moved out of that mess as we had to proceed towards east. God knows what happned to the people who were moving north towards badrinath. The night journey was again interesting as i managed to stir up my favorite topic of ghosts and i swear by god it was actually spooky. In between we guys wanted to take a leak but i guess the topic made us realise that the cab was a safer option at least for some time(b4 u start thinking no we did'nt pee inside :)

Later that evening we reached Lohajang. The next day i.e 17 June we headed for Wan. There had been offseason rains as a result the entire area was lush green. Otherwise in general also i noticed there were thick lush green forests- all thanks to the regular supply of rainfall that uttranchal receives.

Between Lohajang and wan there was a nice waterfall where we all posed






On reaching Wan we organized our stuff and loaded everything on three mules.Third mule not in the pic, probably munching somewhere



Finally we were ready to leave , of course not before another group pic
We started at 9:00 AM from Wan.
Weather was sunny. GPS showed 7559 feet and pressure reading was 766 mBars



While climbing we met a lot of humans , animals etc
Every liked being clicked and were generally photogenic




Now it was doggy's time to get clicked.
Guess saurabh was initially apprehensive of Mr doggy but it did'nt take very long .



after all dog is a mans best friend...



our turn to prove the fact :)



Throughout the trek we bumped into cute pahari kids who would greet us by saying namastey. Wish i had carried some candies :( Next time you guys head for the hills dont forget to carry some. They love it!



During the First day, the first half of the trek takes you through village till you reach a top where there is a small clearing, some sort of a meadow. We took a short rest along with our mules who kept munching.

After a short while we continued further. The trail continued straight till a point came from where we had to descend down to a stream.




From there the tough climb started. Our next pit stop was gharoli patal. In between it started raining heavily for which we were prepared. We quickly covered the mules with plastic sheets and wore barsatees( polythene raincoats). They are easily available all over uttaranchal and our pretty cheap just 5 bucks.

Some snapshots of us and animals while it was raining



Finally after almost 6.5 hours we reached the beautiful meadows of bedni. The clouds had cleared by then and the view was breathtaking.

We quickly set up our tents ,had an early dinner and hit the sack early since next day again was a tough climb.

From bedni the peaks of chaukhamba and kamet were visible. I'm not to sure about kamet as i used the same orientation on google earth to check up. Do correct me if i am wrong.




Height of bedni was 11672 feet and the pressure reading was 668 mbars



I saw a lot of these rodents on the meadows. I guess they thrive on juicy grasses
They resembled a mouse but was definitely something different maybe a lemming or chinchilla



During evening i took a shot of distant mountains. I did some fooling around in photoshop for this image



We started at 8:00 AM,18 june for our next destination i.e Baghubasa which is the base camp for roopkund lake.

had never seen so much greenery around in my life



We did a lot of posing around ...








The entire route was full of small flowers like these



Reached Pathar nachoni at 10:30 after a walk of 2.5 hours.
As per folklore here some dancers were turned into stones.

Altitude here was 12884 feet and pressure reading was 633mBars




Many trekkers instead of reaching Baghubasa camp at pathar nachnoi which is a good idea for starters since acclimatisation is required. Of course some people are seasoned climbers ;)



The meadows at pathar nachnoi were full of horses



After a short rest we started the tough climb for kalu vinayak which is a mountain pass. It took about 2 hours and 5 minutes to reach the top.

There was a small temple dedicated to Lord Ganesh at kalu vinayak.
The altitude here was 14,283 feet and pressure reading was 600mBars

From here on i had a recurring headache- symptoms of altitude sickness .




This is the trail we had to negotiate to reach kalu vinayak



Bagubhasa is 20 minutes away from the mountain pass.
We reached there and quickly occupied the empty huts made up of stones.



The sun was setting for the day



Next day i.e 19 June we started our climb for roopkund.Throughout the journey i met many groups but none were able to make it to roopkund. All were like to much snow, even the guides advised us not to pursue further since any slip could be fatal as there were deep falls below.




All this did not bother us and we continued to climb. We saw another group from banglore who had made an early start, by then they were just an hour away from roopkund. This was definitely inspiring since till now we had not heard any good news

The climb had been a tough one and there were places where i had to walk on my all fours. I was thinking if its like this now what will happen when we would descend.

Anyways we had started at 6:15 and by 9:00 we hit roopkund.The lake was totally frozen, i scanned the slopes for any skeletal remains. I think i did see what i thought was a human skull. Open the pic full size to see

My GPS showed an altitude of 15,645 feet. pressure reading was 569Mbars
i wonder which source is reliable since i checked up on google earth, the margin of error was less but at wikipedia and other sites the altitude shown was much higher.




We did not spend much time at Roopkund since the previous group warned us that sun was melting snow and it would get difficult to get back. Those guy climbed till zorawar gali which is even higher than roopkund.

After about 10 minutes we started descending and i think by 11 we were at base camp.
By now my headache was bad and i felt little pukish.
For Lunch we had maggi and some ready to make stuff. I think from there on i'm never gonna eat either, the very thought gives me nausea.

At base camp we met a trekking family. They had done a lot of treks including kalindi khal.In fact their name is in Limca Book of records for being the only family with youngest kid to do that trek. Kalindi khal is 19000+ feet and their son was 14 years old then.

The same day we walked all the way back to bedni.
Normally people climb back to Baghubasa and do bedni the next day.
By now i had terrible pain in my left knee .

After reaching bedni i took lemon with salt for nausea and that did wonders for me. We had a hearty meal and slept early .

On 20 June we started our downward journey to the village of didana via ali bugyal.
I think Ali Bugyal was even prettier than bedni bugyal. You have to see these shots to believe



The landscape was quite different




Doesnt this resemble the amul ad?



horse as usual were grazing



This one looks like the WINXP wallpaper



everone kept wakking on



This was the last view of ali bugyal , from here on the steep descent through thick jungles started.



At one place in the forest we came across a fallen tree on our trail. The guide told us not to go below the tree but instead cross over it. He said if you do so and dont give any offering to the tree , the tree will take you. I did'nt know what he meant by that.We even saw offering on the tree like bangle,beads,necklace etc. That was kinda scary.

Though all this sounded superstitious we were very quick to follow his words

We reached didana from where we made a call to lohaganj to call our qualis at kuling which was another couple of hours walk from didana.

We had tea at this old lady's place, somehow my leg pain did disappeared for a short while.



In didana i clicked some shy youngsters



Finally we reached kuling where we settled the account with guide, mules etc
Since we had time we decided to push ourselves for a few hours drive as this would have decreased next days travel time.

We stayed at some place that night.
Next day we drove via almora,haldwani.
This was the last view that we saw of trishul



At about 10 at night we reached delhi.