picto-blog

Kedartal 2008

2010-07-04T05:03:00.000-07:00

This trek should have been blogged long back but thanks to lazy me , it took 1 year and 9 months of realisation to convince myself. Also thanks to my not-so Pachydermic memory ( did I just coin a new term) I’ve lost all my mental as well as jotted down notes . So this would be more of a visual blog.

The team comprised of following people

Amit Manchanda

Gurmeet Singh Kalsi

Hemam biju singh

Saurabh Vedi

Sunny Das

4 Porters

1 Guide

A snapshot of the region we were trekking in. Take off point is Gangotri and destination was Kedartal lake

13 September,2008

We Reached Gangotri from Uttarkashi by late afternoon. Decided to explore more of Gangotri.

We visited GauriKund falls. The sheer force of raging bhagirathi had crafted a beautiful rock-scape.

We decided to visit Pandu Gufa ( Cave) since we had ample time in hand. It was a 2 hour walk from GMVN guest house

Inside the boulder cave, there were 3 sadhus who had congregated and were smoking up. The one on the right appeared to be a guru as the other two clad sadhus were seeking his blessings. We were inside the cave for a short before we decided to head back to Gangotri.

Back at Gangotri we visited a yoga guru’s ashram.

A picture of baba during his younger days adorned the walls of his modest dwelling

His hut was a well kept one with a nice courtyard among which a apple trees were the star attraction. He let us pluck some.

14 September,2008

It was showtime. We got up early and started from Gangotri at 7:00 AM.

Crossed the bridge to the other side from where we had to start climbing. En route we were stopped by forest officials for forest fee. There was a short delay of 20 minutes.

As we climbed we saw the kedar gorge formed by KedarGanga It was a scary yet beautiful sight. There were pine trees and the gorge was quite deep, in fact at some places very little light was reaching.

As we climbed higher we came across a big herd of sheep's against the backdrop of kedar gorge.

One of the sheep gawked at me as I approached closer.

We met the shephard who was herding the flock. He had traveled all the way from Chamba ( Uttrakhand).

Everyone posed around the hardy shephard dog who had become a local celebrity

We continued our climbed till we reached the first stretch of landslide. It was a scary patch and we had to hurry as a lot of rockfall happens. Every second here meant danger.

Usually on Kedartal trek the day 1 camp is set at a place called Bhoj Kharak which is actually a shepherd's camp site.

To get there one has to negotiate another obstacle in the form of a rock face.
Seen here is biju negotiating the rock wall

Gurmeet takes a momentary break to pose.

Soon after crossing the Rockface we were at the Day 1’s supposed campsite called BhojKharak. It was just 12:30 by the time we had reached. The sun was very strong and it was very hot. I had a headache here. The campsite was not clean and we basically had the whole day to walk so we decided to just have lunch and move further ahead for a better camping site. Oh by the way for lunch we had maggi which sucked big time.

As we climbed the terrain began harsher and mountains more rugged

Mount Thalaysagar was appearing in view.

The landscape was breathtaking. There were hues of red,green,grey.

As we neared our would-be campsite we spotted a big group of Bharals ( blue sheep) on the opposite slope. I’ve noticed that these guys have a very keen eye-sight as some of them had spotted us as well.

This campsite was a much better compared to Bhoj kharak which was basically on a surface strewn with goat droppings. Incidentally here i got to pitch my Kelty tent for the first time. It could comfortably house 4 people. Our tents were ready by 5:30

Our kitchen tent

Some fauna around

As the sun was setting, Mount Thalaysagar bore an orangish tinge. We called it a day.

15 September

We woke up before 7 AM and took some shots of the neighboring peaks

Panorama as seen from our campsite

After our ablution and breakfast etc we started our trek to the lake.

Around 11 Am we reached Kedar-Kharak campsite

We spotted a big group of Bharals

Some were precariously perched on rock fall prone slopes. Must say they really are sure footed.

We reached Kedartal by 13:40 pm.The view was simply breathtaking. Mount Brighupanth(6772m) and Thalaysagar( 6984m) were in the background of lake kedartal (4900m). Also seen is Kedar Glacier on the left.

We camped by the side of Kedartal lake. The white tent was the latest addition to my trekking paraphernalia arsenal- kelty 4 man 3 season tent.

In the evening before finishing dinner went for a leak outside. It was very spooky outside. A layer of mist had descended on the lake giving the surroundings an ominous look. In those few minutes only I fell ill.

Couldn’t eat dinner properly as I felt pukish

16 September

It was time to head back but before going we decided to so some glacier exploration. We had noticed some glacial tarns . Me and sunny along with the help of guide took the decision to walk up till there. It was my first ever experience with glacier, moraine and a mini crevasse. The constant hopping over ever shifting stones soon started to take toll in the from of mental frustration.

This was the small crevasse over which we hopped

So finally we reached the tarn. It was green with chunks of ice constantly breaking and adding mass to it.

As I was positioning myself a stone gave away under my weight and I fell but managed to arrest my fall with my left palm, in the bargain injuring it. I almost thought it was a hairline fracture but luckily I was wrong as I discovered the same later.

Its an amazing feeling to see geology in action. We were actually in the midst of something that we have always studied in ncert text books and somehow never really related. Of course now with advent of technology ( internet etc) things are different

We decided it was time to head back. By the time we were at campsite the tents were already packed and team was waiting for us. We continued our march.
Took a break at Kedar Kharak after descending the moraine ridge from Kedartal. There were more groups present there heading for the lake

On reaching short of Bhoj Kharak we thought it was possible to push forward to Gangotri since we did have some time but again we were not sure if we could make it down in that time frame.

The favorite spider wall section

KedarGanga Gorge

By the time we reached Gangotri it was dark. We had managed to push ourselves from kedartal to Gangotri in one single day. Lost an altitude of approx 5500 feet.

Back at rishikesh the boys managed rafting as well :)

2008-04-06T09:49:00.000-07:00

Himachal's own shangri-la

This time again we continued our last years tradition of giving holi(indian festival) a golee (slang for slip in hindi) and decided to head for the kinnaur and spiti districts of himachal pradhesh.

The take off point for the trip was ISBT Delhi. My partners this time were Sumita and Sunny. Sumita took a flight from chennai and Sunny from banglore. Also this was not our first trip together. Our earlier common trips had been lansdowne and triund.

21 March:

We got the bus tickets till recong peo for Rs 460 each. The Journey is a rather uncomfortable one as it takes 21 hours to reach and moreover only government buses ply that far so you can imagine the quality. I have very fond memories of this journey as this is not my first time and i invariably end up like a conehead at the end of it. All thanks to non reclining seats, i sleep with the forehead resting on front metallic bar of the seat and i guess that explains the conehead part.

22 March:
We were still travelling. I find the journey boring initially till shimla. Only once the road descends on to satluj bed, the drive becomes exciting. For most part of the year , satluj remains dirty except for in winters when its is green. There is a change in terrain once you cross wangtu. It becomes noticeably rocky

After a long tiring journey we reached the district HQ's of kinnaur- Recong peo. There we checked at a hotel next to the bus stop. The rooms were decent except for the smell. I guess they had not opened in a long time since the season had still not started.They charged us Rs 300 for a night. We settled in our rooms and freshened up. Me and sunny decided to take a short stroll while sumi was cozying up in the bed. Since much part of Holi was over that day and already the sun was preparing for some rest, the whole town bore an eerie look. The view of kinner kailash ranges was not the best around that time since light was very low

We did see a lot of children activity. There were these group of sherpa kids who were giggling and laughing a lot.

We took a private taxi for kalpa which commands a grand view of kinner kailash. But we were in for disappointment as it was dark by the time we made it.The taxi cab took us for a ride in both sense as at the end of it he asked for a princely amount. We had no option as we forgot to settle the price prior to starting.
After the short trip we got back to our rooms had dinner and were back in bed.

23 March:
We got our tickets for Kaza from the bus stop for 200 Rs. Kaza is the district HQ's of spiti. The journey is again a long one involving about 10 hours and a drastic change in topography. Initially the terrain is very rocky . There are stretches where the mountains on the either side of satluj bed close in as if trying a death grip on you. It can get very claustrophobic.

Any foreigners traveling to spiti will have their permits checked at jangi post. They need to arrange the permits from recong peo.

For breakfast we stopped at spello, some distance ahead of the jangi post. We had delicious alloo ka paranthas. As we were moving ahead there was a nice contrast in the scenery with hues of pink, brown, blue and white.

The local childrens were very cute.

As you enter upper kinnaur the mountains become more stark and barren. Also you can see some impressive bridges like this one at dubling

At Khab the road bifurcates for spiti and shipki-la. The river spiti (blue) and satluj(brown) meet at khab.

As you keep driving up the valley floor keeps getting higher. The average altitude is higher than 10,000 feet ahead of khab with road climbing to as high as 12000 feet at malling. It is a notorious area known for frequent slides. The entire are is strewn with boulders . Kinnaur as such doesnt have any passes on the main highway that remain closed during winters. Malling is the only stretch that might remain closed during any part of the year. During winters it might be snow while during summers it may landlslides.
After crossing khab you reach the small hamlet of nako. The views of himalayas are impressive from here.

Nako at 3625m is one of the highest villages in kinnaur . There's a small landlocked lake which gets frozen during winters. Of lakes of similar variety, the one at dhankar is more spectacular. One needs to trek to reach there. I've heard there are huge fish in it. In fact in Nako lake also you can see gold fish.

Kalchakra was once held at nako . There's a beautiful complex that had been constructed to facilitate the same.

After you leave Nako the roads continue to wind and remain at a great height . if you suffer from vertigo then maybe its not the best place to be at. A peek down the valley can leave you dizzy.

Also the terrain starts to become more and more barren. One doesnt get to see any trees around.

We kept going on the unending journey and finally reached kaza at 5 PM. Kaza looked straight out of some deserted ghost town as the entire place was shut down. No shops were open and much to our horror no hotels were functional. We had arrived at the wrong season. Due to the excessive cold all pipes were still frozen , thats why no hotels were functional. We kept checking up until one co-passenger from spiti helped us out by taking us to this government lodge. I spoke to the officer in charge and he agreed. The rooms were very comfortable, only problem like i said earlier was water. The attendant Vijay was a very sweet guy and made sure hot water was available.

Those of you who are ready to brave all this, then only step in else the trip can be a nightmare. Fortunately all of us were so high on himalayas that these small worldly problems seemed insignificant. Oh yes another word of advice: Unless you wanna go in for the dusky look don't forget to carry a sunscreen with highest possible SPF. Beware if you dont you will end up like peeled potatoes and once you are back to your respective cities don't forget to get the vital supply of lost vitamin D

24 March: Day 1 at kaza

We decided to stay at Kaza for a good two days and decided to explore as much as possible.Todays plan was a visit to dhankar gompa and the worlds highest village comic.

We proudly present our very sweet and infinitely patient driver. Oops i forgot his name :(

Dhankar Gompa is pretty much ancient. It is said to have been constructed around 9th century and belongs to the Gelugpa sect ( yellow hats). It is perched precariously on mud cliffs . As per one poster which i saw there, its condition has been deteriorating and a lot needs to be done to preserve it.

Dhankar commands spectacular view of the valley below. One can see the confluence of pin and spiti river, also the valley leading to pin is visible. The pin parvati trek ends here only. There's another gompa on the road leading to pin valley. Its called kungri gompa. Since it was little off route we didn't have it on our itinerary.

Inside the Dhankar gompa there are a lot of ancient thangkas and statues . Unfortunately we are not allowed to photograph them. They say the flash from camera can cause damage to the old paintings. Also in the past some people were taking advantage by selling the pictures .

I made two friends with the lamas. One of them was Lama lobsang tantar whom you can see below. quite a funky dude aint he :) of course he is traditional as well. We had a great time chatting up with them. Even learnt a tibetian mantra.

Guys , in case you planning a visit to dhankar i would greatly appreciate if you could check up whether they recieved the cd and pictures from me. Its a small place and i'm sure it wouldn't be much of a hassle. Just in case you do my mail id is arunnegi82@gmail.com.

It was time to head for the second leg of our journey i.e. we were heading for the worlds highest village at comic.

Sumi was very much interested to spend some time by the river so we stopped enroute. The water was freakingly freezingly cooooold. I still cant figure how sumi and sunny were staying in that frigid water. I came out fast. They were having a good time it seems

Even donkey were having a gala time

After the short break we carried on for comic. After crossing Kaza the climb started and soon we were getting on same level as the mountains. The scenery was breathtaking.

There's a vast flat area on top . You can get an idea from the google earth pic below. Also the prominent mountain below is Shilla. There is a pic as well as you go down below. All the places that i've marked are relatively spaced and are not geographically accurate but to a certain extent good enough.

Kibber wildlife sanctuary is located on the flat top that you see above. We did see blue sheeps or bharal as they are known.

A very prominent feature is the shilla peak that overlooks langcha village. Mountain expeditions keep scaling it until recently when a ban was imposed owing to environmental issues. Interestingly the villagers had imposed this.

Langcha village below the shilla peak. If you notice there's a big statue of lord Buddha as well.

Finally we arrived at comic village. Around the time we arrived the young lamas got some time off for themselves. They were very playful and we had a great time with them. The timing was just perfect.
Cricket was the game of choice . Probably they were playing at the worlds highest location since comic is as it is the highest village.

They even played with their pet donkey. I must admit he was actually quite adorable. I even have a video which i'll upload on youtube

Cubism is the word that comes into your mind when you see the houses in spiti. Unlike in kinnaur these houses are made of mud. minimal wood is used since it is scarce here. I heard from one of my relatives that nothing goes wasted here.Even animal dung is collected at real time to be used for fire. Life surely is tough out here. All the more makes me appreciate whatever i have.

young Lama trying the elvis poseWe took some pictures of ourselves enjoying some quiet moments

Sunny was busy with sumi' shoot and i was busy with sunny's shoot.

There was a monastry at comic as well. I'm afraid the light was too low for me to click and moreover i wasnt carrying a tripod for a long exposure so had to do with outside paintings.

The highlight of the monastry was the snow leopards pelt. I couldnt believe that i was actually seeing an entire stuffed snow leopard. Since i read peter Matthiessen snow leopard, i've always been mesmerized by this elusive creature. I've heard a lot of stories from my relatives as to how they stalk livestock and dogs during winters. In fact my paternal aunt from thungi ( kinnaur) has lost two of her dogs in the past. Well I dream that one day i'll be able to spot one in the wild.
I guess everyone's aware as to how much endangered the snow leopard is. People like George B Schaller and peter Matthaliessen have campaigned for its survival. Poachers kill snow leopard for its pelt which can fetch a very high amount in he international market. Villagers often inadvertently kill the snow leopard when it strays in their domain for the fear of the safety of their livestock but now awareness is high among them plus the laws are more strict.

As far as my knowledge is concerned they are found in pakistan,india,nepal and central asian countries.

25 March: Day 2 at Kaza
Todays plan was to visit Losar and Ki Gompa. As we moved towards Losar the amount of snow kept on increasing considerably.
Beauty wise no doubt the area has no parallels but when it comes to living here its a struggle. At least i take so many things for granted like water supply, food on time etc. The problems associated with the lack of all this became more evident when you have to live in same conditions. It was indeed tough to have water heated for smallest of things and that too when someone else was doing it for you. Just think of it all water sources are frozen. What do you do? I know i've seen how people often make fun of mountain folks saying they dont take bath etc. If those guys have to brave these conditions they wont be any different.

Tourist activity was almost nil. The only other people i saw were these 2 bikers at dhankar having karnataka's registration. While returning we met 2 guys who seem to have succumbed to the cold weather. Local taxis were plying ferrying people from one village to other.

Enroute there was a big statue of Lord buddha overlooking one of the villages.

Sunny spotted a fox while we were driving towards Comic yesterday and as luck would have it we managed to see another one. This was our second sighting of the beautiful animal. I guess they avoid human contact as the moment he saw us he sped away galloping in his own cute way far away. Then he stopped , glanced back momentarily . By then he had assumed a safe distance from us humans . He kept staring at his version of wild creatures.

After a certain distance road was the only part not under snow. Imagine this was the snow cover in March. i wonder how the things would have been in January.

Soon we reached Losar only to find the roads were blocked. I was hoping that we'll be able to make it till Kunzum-la which was 22 km's from Losar.

This was probably the same bulldozer that had been clearing the road right from Kaza.

Losar , like Kaza was a sleepy town around this time of the year. We hardly saw much activity. One elderly person invited us for tea at his place.

He had a nice cosy kitchen. pretty much the same like we have in kinnaur.

We had some fun time in the snow. sumi really freaked out and two days later because of my and sunny's facial sunburn we also freaked out.

Rolling in snow is much faster than walking. Sumi was picking up things fast :)

Sumi being stalked by yeti

Me and sunny climbed till some vantage point and the view from there was awesome

The sun was setting down and so we decided to head back as we had to go to Ki gompa . Within few hours we reached Ki gompa.

All of us were cold since we had been freaking out on snow. Lama's tea was a nice welcome change. His name is Lama Chering.

26 March: Drive till Chitkul, Kaza goodbye.

We started off early in morning from Kaza for our next destination i.e. Chitkul. We were sharing the taxi with few more people and had to pay three grands.

The journey was smooth except for some stretches in between where road clearing was going on.

Here in the pic below you can see the typical labour responsible for maintaining and building the himalayan roads. They have to brave severe weather conditions and often many lives are lost and go unacknowledged. Except for some few obscure highway monument , mountains are the only ones who bear testimony to their indefatigable spirit.

For the ardent himalayan traveler road side signs like project himank, deepak,beacon surely rings a bell.

By evening we had started climbing up for sangla valley, i had an inkling the weather was getting bad. My fears were confirmed when we neared rakcham. It started snowing. I was excited as i had not seen fresh snowfall in a looong time. The last when i saw snow fall was way back in 93 in arunachal.

By the time we reached it had stopped snowing. We stayed at Raj guest house, the same person i stayed with in 2003. That time i had come with my college friends Devrishi and ashish. God Bless Dev , he is no longer with us.

Raj had made some modifications to his room. Now he has one room with an attached toilet. His room rates are also very nominal. If you are visiting chitkul i would recommend this place.We stayed there for the night and next morning we had some time so decided to explore the area.

27 March: Chitkul and Sangla

Raj's guest house

One of Raj's friends came over early. He had a very typical kinnauri face

We decided to walk till baspa's bed through the village. The most prominent mountain feature that is visible from chitkul is Tha-la. Actually i still dont know the proper name, its called Tha-la by the locals.

In kinnaur all villages have a temple complex where they keep the devta. For any big decisions or village problems they take the help of devta. This was the entrance of the temple at chitkul.

The old lady was basking in sunshine
The forest on the right bank of Baspa

Soon all of us were busy doing our stuff.

We tried some river crossing. Sunny managed to pull himself to the other side

Mine was fraud

Sunny appreciating the view

Sumi in a pensive mood
We took the afternoon bus for Sangla. Found a reasonable guest house for our stay.
We decided to take a walk along the road leading to chitkul. It was a nice pleasant evening and we just took off at our own lazy pace clicking here and there.
A chance meeting with a school boy and our short walk became even more interesting. Deepu was walking back from school and was probably in his usual naughty mood. While sumi was clicking he was playfully trying to block her frame :)

He also joined us for our walk and soon started telling us about the area.
donkeys can be photogenic at times. strange my pics never come out nice :P
Deepu told us an interesting thing about this white thing you see in the centre of the pic. It is said to be a conch which blows automatically, an harbinger of oncoming disaster. It is rumoured when last time the flashfloods came it did sound. Some person who tried stealing it fell to his death.

In case you wanna spot this feature, it is right above a bridge. By the side of the bridge you have this wooden vulture. It seems to be a guardian against evil.

We continued to walk, walk and walk.
Sunny enjoying some moments with Deepu

Sunny clicks on
sumi looking pretty in sepia mode
soon it was dark and time to take a u-turn. As it started getting darker it was getting spookier

28 March: Sangla

Today was our last day in kinnaur . Sigh all good things have to come to an abrupt end !Anyways we still had a good few hours so we decided to walk till the river bed through the village. so we took a path cutting right through the village.

Around this time a lot of trees were in bloom. Specially apricot and almonds.

The cute kid was enjoying her quiet moments until i disturbed her. She gave me that look which yelled " what the hell"
In kinnaur its very common to see young kids piggybacking on mom's

even on grandpa's
Boddhisatva paintings on roof of some structure

As we were passing through the village, we realised there was a ceremony going on where the devta's ( local diety) were being taken out. Sunny managed this shot. Once inside we were not allowed to click. I must say this was the most beautiful temple complex i've seen in kinnaur

We crossed a bridge to get to the other side

From the river bed, the view of entire sangla was breathtaking.

Villagers were busy carrying woods for daily needs

We had a nice picnic. we had got local bread packed along with jam and butter. Dont worry we disposed of the plastics properly :)

looks tasty doesnt it
Guess it sure was...we had some uninvited guests but thats okay...happens always. doesn't it?Food makes us happy

Well another memorable trip comes to and end!!
For any queries you may contact me at arunnegi82@gmail.com
also see sunny's pics:

http://www.worldisround.com/articles/345235/index.html

My Flickr link:http://www.flickr.com/photos/arunnegi/

this is the best book available on kinnaur and spiti. You could get it from bookwork at CP

2007-06-24T00:05:00.001-07:00

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.

2007-03-08T09:59:00.000-08:00

Holi may golee

Lately I've been keeping myself happy with these weekend getaways. Here's another one in making when we decided to give holi a golee. Since the western disturbances has been playing havoc with the weather,we thought the best accessible place for extreme weather would be places around shimla.

So here we were me, puneet and hemant at ISBT
sunny was missing this time

we took a volvo for shimla and from there a taxi till fagu. Mind you guys, one really needs to bargain with these guys as most of them automatically assume those coming from delhi have deep pockets.

Fagu is about 16 odd kilometers from shimla. As we neared fagu the drive became quite treacherous as there was a thin sheet of frost on road and we were in an 800. The vehicle was swaying side ways but somehow we managed to reach .

Sun rising over himalayas is quite a sight to catch . well this was'nt my first time..

After the sun was up, the mountains bore a surreal look with the mist filling in the valleys

soon it was time for living beings to carry on with their daily chores

and for lesser mortals like us, it was time for some action packed fun. we had a small snow fight frankly it was fun from a distance only . i guess hemant realised the same when an icy flake landed straight through his neck only to find itself navigating through his rear body contours. strangely he did'nt dance.... i guess he's quite tough from inside or maybe he's a master of reiki
well there can be endless theories, we shall discuss that offline hemant ;)

winter time shedding time
cant imagine the same trees could be blossoming with apples during the month of september

okay now it was time for the boys to do some climbing. must say its quite difficult to maintain your hold on terra firma with all that snow around

as we climbed up we saw some impressive scenes so captured them on frames

snow was left up for weather gods mercy. slowly and slowly and drop by drop it melted soon to find itself on another adventure.. to be a part of some river .. to enter some ocean..

some nice looking hotel while climbing

okay so we reached the top. guess the climb was not so bad after all only the deep snow made it worse. The views were awesome from the top as you can see....

Perched at an height of 8726 feet is deshu temple. The temple priest was very sweet as he offered us some tea and breakfast and then escorted us all the way down through a different route

We started walking towards kufri, the trail which linked up with the highway was very scenic and peaceful. Of course all this was broken by our antics- the lazy boyz

me and puneet tried to unleash the artist in us. As you can see puneet was successful in his endeavour while shld i say the artist in me was better of inside only...

so after much fun and frolic we reached kufri. on reaching there we realised it was nothing but an over hyped place. imagine people were trying their hands at skiing on a slope which had no elevation or should i say 0 degrees

while descending saw a lot of lovey dovey couples from chandigarh.
wonder if they would have still held on to each other if the horses ran in opposite directions
some how i wish had some mirchi bombs.

Day 2: it was time to now head for shimla from where we had to catch our volvo

on the way there was some road block so we were stranded for some time. decided to click some random people...

chottu obliged us by smiling...

wonder what was this guy thinking

prize for guessing
whose tummy is it anyway??

Soon we reached shimla
Alright after much hard work, you see we the lazy boyz went all the way up to the mall (of crse in a lift) ya so after hard work it was time for some indulgence

yum yum tiramisu sure rocked

mexican restaurant at mall

after satiating our ravenous hunger it was siesta time
so we the lazy boyz found an empty bench and spent a good part of day on it. in fact a lot of frames were shot from the comfort of those benches like the next five.....

wonder if this monkey was trying her charm with some nasty pole moves lol

hemant was trying to shoot me... even i did

at any given point there was so much energy in the mall, must say you couldnt get bored observing the flurry of activities....

remnants of colonial legacy..

so far way from you

kitty darling was enjoying a solitary moment only to be disturbed by me.Darn humans!!

okay the sun was dying down......

and sooon it was dark and cold

church@mall

since it was time to get moving we took a last shot in our standard lazy pose

is'nt shimla beautiful at night

2007-01-06T02:16:00.000-08:00

New Years on a ridge

Unlike most new years this time i had decided to do something different on new years. Had got bored of the usual parties at dsoi, standing in long queues for something to eat/drink,dancing in claustrophobic places.....

So armed with our bagpacks and vodka we headed for the hills
Took the overnight bus for Macleodganj from CP,delhi

The next day before leaving had a nice breakfast at JJ's in mcleodganj as for the next two days we would have been devoid of all these earthly pleasures

Well the owner of JJ's was wearing these nice shoes so i cld not resist taking this candid pic

Well Mr monkey did oblige me by posing. Thank you sir!

What better than having a refreshing cup of garam garam chai at Himalayan tea shop before starting.
L-R Raja,Sunny,Sameer

We took off at 11:40 Am from here (DharamKot auto stand)

Reached Gallu temple at 12:25.
Height 6898 Feet

Somewhere mid way to triund we decided to pose

Signs of life

Battered , fatigued,tired but yet not giving up. Way to go Sameer!

Destination- so close but yet so far

They say as the wind blows the mantras of peace are spread throughout

Finally reached triund at 16:15 hours
For the google earth enthusiasts here are some intersting tidbits

Coordinates
32 degrees 15 minutes 689 seconds N
76 degrees 21 minutes 267 seconds E
9244 feet

Dhauladhars as viewed from triund.

I had to rely on the stability of my hand for this pic thanx to my tripod which ditched me

This guys looks like someone from the pupper show lol!

So on the 31 December 2006 this is how we celebrated
It tooks us some shots of neat vodka to keep the spirits high

These were Raja's friends who like us had come to celeberate new years at triund. Man i must say they made our new years special by singing some awesome songs. Here's to you guys

Ps: Some of their music composition will figure on my YouTube videos

Surviving heavy odds

Ferocious, friendly, territorial-Bakarwal dogs

Next day we started our trek further up towards laka where we were expecting a lot of snow

Tiranga Walli mata
Coordinates
32 Degrees 16 minutes 102 seconds N
76 Degrees 21 minutes 278 seconds E
9640 Feet

Scenes enroute to Laka

Group Potrait along with my GPS

Sprite bindaas baake sab bakwas

on seeing so much snow we cld'nt contain our excitement....

Lot of snow at laka

Multiple potraits

Dharamshala, Mcleodganj at night

Photographer photographed

This was something very disturbing i noticed. Some of the people who come here were big litterbugs. People should realise how important it is to maintain the environment.

After spending two days on triund it was time to bid farewell

While Descending we decided to take the Bhagsu route which is considered tougher for climbing, of course we were descending :)

Van Devi temple

In the background you can see kangra valley

Flora and Fauna

Siva's painting on a rock

Bhagsu Falls

2006-11-22T10:33:00.000-08:00

Last Supper

It was very sweet of the web team to treat me out for lunch at romano's italian grill. Here are some of the pics of the team in action

Thats our smily Web team :)

is'nt that pretty! well had to be after all Roly was so much engrossed with her artwork

thats srini smiling! he had reasons too after all his artwork was no less

well after the lovely lunch i took off the next day for india.
These are some aerial shots of californian coast.

2006-11-22T09:01:00.000-08:00

@Venice Beach

Venice beach is a small sandy beach along the californian coast that stretches for 3 miles. Of course its much more than a beach, you'll find lots of street perfomers, tarot card readers, painters, tatoo shops etc. Also there's the muscle beach where you can catch a glimpse of bodybuilders pumping iron. In fact arnold at one point of time used to work out here. There are plenty of option for shopping with so many interesting shops along the ocean front walk.
Here are some pics....

Hat-O-Mania ( Sameer and phoebe)

Shopping spreeeee

Remember the movie Big, well now its my turn

Enjoying the sun going down at venice beach

chk out the colours at the horizon. pretty aint it?

A nicely lit theatre at Hollywood boulevard

Wow are they gonna serve drinks out here?

Dinner@Cheesecake factory

2006-10-15T02:14:00.000-07:00

@San Francisco

Last time it was sid who had come down now it was my turn to head north to sunnyvale, of course he was the host both times :) As always we had good fun. First day we went by train to SFO while the next day it was by car. Parking was a big problem as it was always full and pretty expensive.

Colours of SFO

We saw the impressive blue angels (F-18 Hornets)in action. Some of the aerial maneuvers like the 360 degree loop left us spellbound. These pilots have to be superhumans considering the G-forces they have to endure.

Does this remind you of the scene from Rock

People enjoying the air show

Golden gate bridge panorama

Alcatraz - This was a high security prison till 1963 when it was closed and became a tourist attraction.

Old fashioned games

High rise buildings

trams, high rise buildings, inclined roads- thats san francisco

Super bikes

City civic center- SFO's mayor sits here. Also the first gay marriage took place here only

Crabs- To be devoured by humans.

2006-09-10T19:00:00.000-07:00

@Point Magu, Santa Monica mountains

This time the boys decided for something rough, the obvious option was to head for the nearest hills for some hiking. There could'nt have been a better option than santa monica mountains, which offers a breathtaking view of Pacific. It was about an hour's drive from our place.So off we took in gautam's pickup and here's another adventure in making......

Gautam's pickup

The first view that we got of Pacific

Entrance of the park

interesting part was from where we started the height was -120 feet below sea level

Self timer does'nt always work :)

Santa Monica mountains

Is'nt that breathtaking

Flora

Indian version of cobra-Gautam

saw this interesting message on a beach
it says
Love u Toshi RIP bro

Mountain cats are very dangerous- so ppl beware

return of jumping jacks

sun setting down

shadow warrior

while driving back saw this view

2006-09-06T21:57:00.000-07:00

@Sea World,San Diego

Day 2 of long weekend and we had nothing to do. We decided to visit sea world at San diego .We rented a car and took off during morning. San diego is about 2 hours drive from LA, since it was the long weekend and thanxx to low tire pressure we managed in 4 hours. The drive was good fun, unfortunately none of us had a license so gautam had the full pleasue of driving down.

Bamri , himanshu, me and gautam

Relaxed state of mind- Gautam

Crowd cheering for Shamu- the killer whale

Is'nt she a beauty? hey what u thinking. am talking about shamu ;)

Friendly dolphins

Hard to believe she's a killer whale huh!

i would'nt dare to do that

Some other aquatic life forms

Ocean backwaters as seen from Sea World

2006-09-06T00:02:00.000-07:00

Siddharth's visit to LA

Some snapshots from another interesting day i had. Got to meet my school buddy Siddharth who had come to LA during the long weekend (labour day). We first went to sid's alma matar University of southern California from where he had graduated.Like a proper guide he gave me an ashima( Sid's better half) a tour of the univ. Later in the evening we drove towards the Santa Monica beach- yes its the same beach where baywatch was shot. So here are some of the highlights from the trip.....

University of Southern california

Different shades of Sid

To UCLA from USC. Can you guess what does the structure signify?? thanxx to the rivalry between both univs, its the middle finger pointing towards UCLA. interesting aint it ;)

Forbidden fruit

somehow i have to capture creatures in most of my trips ....

This is the same place where events like Miss Universe etc are hosted. Its called the shrine

Pacific coast@LA

View of coast from Pepperdine Univ

Interesting way to display ads

Lights out!!

2006-08-29T00:26:00.000-07:00

@Universal studios,Los Angeles- California

Well this is my first visit outside India( i'm not counting burma and bangladesh :) Arrived here on 13 August. well so far the experience has been amazing, though its a bit late but am finally learning to be independant.

Anyways after a week's hard work it was time for some fun, so we decided to try out Universal Studios. Our friend Phoebe Carter was generous enough to show us the place. For those who dont know Phoebe is a gold mine of talent. Whether it’s with stand-up comedy, acting, songwriting or as a recording artist, she is as hot as her red hair looks. Her sweet, “girl-next-door” appearance makes you love her, while her sexy, sharp, neurotic wit makes you laugh and cry and laugh some more......

okay i have to admit i copied this from her page . Hey Phoebe hope you wont sue me for that ;)
but yes as is my experience with her she is indeed very talented, has an amazing sense of humour, is an actor, script writer,singer ....... well i could just go on about her

So we left for Universal studios on saturday ( 26 august). There were a lot of rides ,4d movies and shows etc. First we went for the animal actors show, i must say the animals were quite smart and well trained some of which could easily surpass human intelligence. I found the orangutang guy pretty cool(i guess i'll change my name to arungatang :)

Animal Actors

There was a set based on the movie waterworld(above). The stunt guys enacted the scene from movie which was very well choreographed. There was lot of action -guys falling from heights, fire, jet skies, firing , explosions etc.

The lady you see above is Wendy Miklovic,Phoebe's friend. She is a stunt woman for the wateworld show and does stunts which an average person would'nt dream of doing .

Ya right ! breaking rules can be fun at times

LA as seen from Universal studios

performers at city walk ( scottish bagpipers -Left, Columbian band-right)

four in one

Jurrasic park ride

LA at night

2006-07-11T09:15:00.000-07:00

@Lansdowne

Finally another of our short and sweet trip materialised after much searching and debating.
As suggested by Antara's sis Arpita, we decided on lansdowne.
Lansdowne is a small hill station in uttaranchal about a hour and a half's drive from kotdwara
and is situated at a height of roughly 1700 mts. It is famous for the Garhwal Regimental centre which was established by the britishers.

We took a train on friday from old delhi station , it took off at 10:30 pm and reached Kotdwara the next day morning at about 7. From there we took a jeep for Lansdowne, the fair being 400 bucks.

The team this time comprised of the following people
Antara- NIIT
Sumita- Satyam
Rajani-NIIT
Sunny- HCL
Hemant-IBM
Me- Birlasoft

as always we guys freaked out big time as you can see in the pics..

sunny , antara, rajani, sumita

deadly sunny , macho hemant

three's a company

jumping jacks

hemant,sunny,antara,rajani,sumita and me

We had got a prior booking done in Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam’s tourist bungalow. The rates were pretty reasonable, 2145 Rs for one and a half day stay.

One of the good things about this quiet lil place was the colonial feel-bungalows, paths, church,benches etc We visited a couple of places like bhulla lake, tiffin top,St John's church etc
The various narrow paths lead you through jungles which to an extent resemble rainforests
specially during the rainy seasons.

On Day-1 we had gone to tiffin top, but we ran outta luck as it was raining cats and dogs and the entire area was covered with fog.
We decided to try our luck during day-2
and so after a much awaited wait, the fog finally cleared to reveal one of the most majestic sight we had ever witnessed. Everyone was so much captivated
This is what we saw......

Some other snaps from the trip

scary tree

St John's church

Mushroom

Duck@Bhulla lake

parasitic relation

Marjorie's grave

lonesome duck

grazing bull

Lazy kittens with mama

Wild flowers

man's age old companion

2006-06-11T01:37:00.000-07:00

Me and another friend navin had gone for Abhijeet's Passing out parade at IMA (10 June)
Here are a few snapshots .....

Chetwode building , The passing out parade takes place here only.

The cap throwing ceremony is followed just after taking the oath.
Earlier it was held in front of Khetarpal bulding

Vineet (7 Para), Kuki(Assam Reg), Abhijeet(signals)

War memorial at IMA

At the war memorial , there was a wall where the names of decorated soldiers
were mentioned.

Navin standing in front of Khetarpal building, which was named after named after 2nd Lieutenant Arun Khetarpal ,who was a proud recipent of PVC. His last message communicated the following message to his Commander even though when he was ordered to abandon his tank "No Sir, I will not abandon my tank. My gun is still working and I will get these bastards."

2006-04-30T09:03:00.000-07:00

We guys had gone for a team building exercise from NIIT Tech Ltd to Jim Corbett national park, incidentally the same day was my birthday i.e 1 April. Though it was a short stay of two days but we enjoyed every bit of it.We stayed at Manu Maharani resort- the prices were exorbitant but not a cause of concern for us as it was company sponsored :)
Here are some of the pics that i took....

These were the cottages where we stayed. Also there was a small pool as u can see below

There were wide fields behind the resort

We went for two safari's one at night and one during morning. Everyone was hoping to catch a glimpse of the tiger but alas the tiger remained elusive at least for us. There were three jeeps,one of them did manage to catch a glimpse so for them it was total paysa vasoool ;)

The night safari was very spooky as when you move in the jeep you are supposed to sit quiet without making any noise. Except for the area illuminated by headlights every thing was pitch dark. The very thought there might be a tiger roaming freely was very scary,also the night safari is not allowed in the main park as it remains closed.

The morning safari was rather boring as we spotted everything except for the tiger. We had to stay happy with the pug marks and scratch marks on trees :) anyways here are the few living things i managed to capture

Spotted Deer

Sambhar

Langoor

Jungle Fowl

The Bird that you see below, i felt was almost teasing me. She was like come on get me if you can
Whenever i managed to focus on her she would just fly away. anyways after much efforts she finally decided to cooperate

cant say the same for this kingfisher , i guess she was like pic huh ,my arse!!

here are some random pics i took while inside the resort

Finally the team......

spirit of republic day

2006-01-26T09:19:00.000-08:00

Took a pic today which i think captures the spirit of republic day from a common man's perspective. what do you say?

also took a shot of our tiranga