Thursday 11 August 2016

Kedarnath – The Unexpected Adventure



It was the last week of September, 2014. I didn’t have too many leaves in hand, so I decided to spend a few days in Rishikesh. It was an uneventful journey until Rishikesh and I wasn’t complaining considering that in my last trips, I had once almost missed a train and on another occasion had reached my destination dehydrated with motion sickness.
As I reached Rishikesh, I didn’t quite have any plans in mind for the next day. I met a friend there and when he asked me if I had any plans, I simply said that all I wanted to do was to sleep and would think about it in the morning.
Morning arrived and my friend came up with this wild idea of going to Kedarnath. I call it wild because we had no clue about how many kms we’d have to trek, we didn’t have enough money to rent a vehicle till the nearest road head SonPrayag / Gauri Kund and so he decided to rent a bullet for the journey. I couldn’t refuse this offer as in my entire lifetime, I had ridden pillion on a bike on only 2 occasions and that too for not more than 10km. And this was a bullet!

Before I tell you my story, let me tell you the story of the legend of Shri Kedarnath. The story dates back to the great Indian epic Mahabharata. The Pandavas (5 brothers), having slain their own brethren in the great war of Kurukshetra, decided to ask forgiveness from Lord Shiva for their deeds. Shiva, in turn, wanted to avoid the Pandavas and hence disguised himself as a bull. The Pandavas kept searching for Shiva but he was nowhere to be found. They, then, somehow came to know that Shiva had disguised himself as a bull. But to their dismay, they found that there was a large herd of bulls passing by. How were they to recognize Shiva in this herd? Bhima, the second brother, had an idea. He spread his legs across the the valley through which the bulls were passing such that the bulls had to pass under him. He knew Shiva, the Great , would never pass under him. Thus, Shiva was discovered. But Lord Shiva was not one to be fooled easily. With his great power, Shiva blasted the earth and disappeared within it. He then, emerged at 5 different places known and venerated today as the Panch Kedar (the 5 holy places in the Himalayas for the worship of Lord Shiva and a pilgrimage on its own). Shiva's hump emerged at Kedarnath. Kedarnath is also one of the 12 Jyotirlings (pillars of light) of Shiva.
We managed a good bike but it had no luggage carrier. Ugh! This meant that only one rucksack could be tied to the bike. I’d have to manage mine on my shoulders. This wasn’t good news. We were planning to go up to Guptkashi and it was a good 170 km from Rishikesh. Nevertheless, we started. The sun was up and the heat was scorching. We had forgotten to factor in the fact that until we reach the higher altitudes, we’d be travelling in the open air in the scorching heat. As I was totally new to travelling on a bike, I just tied my hair in a pony tail and didn’t bother to cover it. We stopped for a break in a restaurant just before Dev Prayag. As I looked at myself in the mirror in the washroom, I was shocked at the figure staring back at me. I have fairly straight hair but the figure staring back at me looked as if it had just been given an electric shock! When I asked my friend, he didn’t say much out of gentlemanly courtesy, but he couldn’t stifle a small giggle either. He suggested that I cover my head with a bough to avoid more such figures staring back at me. I had a hard time entangling the mess and after I had done so, I obediently covered my head.

DevPrayag
Our next pit stop was RudraPrayag for lunch. By now, we were drenched in perspiration and didn’t want to think if embarking on a bike was a good idea after all. At DevPrayag, we had moved a lot of my stuff into the rucksack that was tied to the bag, yet I was finding it difficult to carry the relatively lighter load on my back. And the heat was making it worse. We decided that we wouldn’t stop any more and would head straight to GuptKashi. We reached GuptKashi a little before dusk.
As we checked into a guest house, we chatted with the owner over tea about the route to Kedarnath. I almost got a shock when he casually mentioned that it’s a 23km trek. In the past, I had trekked more than this, but this time, I simply wasn’t in the mood for trekking that much. And we had no clue about food and staying arrangements on the way. Tired by the journey, we decided to call it a night and to start early the next day.
The next day I woke up late and cursed myself for this. It was going to be a really long day for us. We had to travel 30km on our bike to SonPrayag, park our bike there, get a medical test done and then embark on the trek. We couldn’t start earlier than 9am. The road wasn’t very good and we reached SonPrayag at about 10:15am.


Towards SonPrayag
I sat down for a cup of tea at the nearest tea stall while my friend went to part the bike. The porter charges were exorbitant (Rs 1800 / day)! And I was not in a position to carry my rucksack all the way. So we decided to put all essential stuff in one big rucksack and one small one (a spare that I always carry with myself). The medical tests were more of a formality and after we were done, we started on the trek. We came to know that there were basic lodging available at various places in the trek and so we walked without any particular stop in mind. We’d walk until we felt we could go no longer or until it would be dusk. That was our plan.
We started the trek at about 11am. We reached Gaurikund at about 12:45 am and my friend quickly had lunch. The trek from SonPrayag to Gaurikund was quite boring and the weather was very hot and humid.
Happy in the rain!

I couldn’t eat much and only sipped some tea. As I was doing so, my friend came running to me and said that we need to get out of Gaurikund by 1pm as they wouldn’t allow trekkers after that. I left my tea there and then and we made out of Gaurikund sharp at 1pm.
As we started from Gaurikund, the entire trail was laden with horse poop and the real challenge of the trek was to not stamp on it. It started drizzling after a while and I didn’t know if I should complain. While the rain brought respite to the heat, it also made the poop trickle down thus making it difficult to not stamp on it. We took a short break at Jungle Chhatti and resumed our trek. Avoiding horse poop and incoming ponies, we made it to Bhimballi by 3:00pm. We were hungry now and had to take a decision if we wanted to go further. The trail from Bhimballi looked steep and the next stop was Limchouli about 6km away. Bhimballi looked to me like a forlorn village and its very sight helped me to take the decision of going to Limchouli. We had a quick lunch and started from Bhimballi at 3:30pm.
Bhimballi to Limchouli
To be honest, the trail until Bhimballi was nothing to write to home about save the oodles of shit strewn around the route. However, the thing to marvel at was the stupendous work done by the team from Nehru Institute of Mountaineering in restoring the route after it was destroyed in the 2013 floods. As we started climbing up from Bhimballi, the valley started becoming picturesque. At times, in order to get rid of the monotony of the perfectly paved trail, we took short cuts on muddy trails and grassy lands.
On the way to Limchouli from Bhimballi
Limchouli
Limchouli was soon at sight. This stretch was quite steep and tired us. We reached Limchouli at 5:30pm and decided to go no further.

Accommodation in Limchouli is dormitory style. There are no private rooms available. There is a dining room where for a fixed rate, a decent meal is available. We finally felt cold at night and slept quite early. We decided to leave early the next morning, mainly to avoid ponies on the way.




As I woke up the next morning, I was granted the first views of the mountains and suddenly the world seemed more beautiful, life felt less complicated and the rat race seemed immaterial. Oh! Why do the mountains have such opium like effect!
The first view!
Approaching Kedarnath
                                             

Accommodation
After breakfast, we started for Kedarnath. It was steep but not tiring. We walked at leisure because it was only about 5km from Limchouli. As we were on our way, we saw helicopters zooming in the air transporting pilgrims to Kedarnath. This was a very viable option for Senior Citizens and ailing pilgrims still wishing to catch a glimpse of Lord Kedarnath. We also saw a couple of pilgrims on ponies glued to their tablets. These were the pilgrims who didn’t believe in the Pilgrim’s Progress. We reached Kedarnath at just around noon. Again accommodation here was dormitory style and just as we checked into our room, there was heavy rain. I wasn’t complaining.




We freshened up and when the rain stopped we decided to pay a visit to the temple. The temple is located at least 500meters away from the accommodation area. As I walked towards it, I could see the scars that were left upon this place in the 2013 floods. Tons of debris still to be cleared, houses and shops still buried under heaps of rubble. I wondered if bodies were still buried in there. As if reading my thoughts, a local said that more bodies (or skeletons) would be recovered once these were cleared. Work was on in full swing, but the workers were helpless when confronted with Nature. They had a very small window of time when work could actually take place, with snowfall and rains taking up a lion’s share of the year.



As we approached towards the temple, we were first greeted by Lord Shiva’s best friend, Nandi, The Bull. Nandi always stands guard wherever Lord Shiva resides. What is more interesting about this is that during the Himalayan Tsunami of 2013, Nandi was fully buried under the debris for days. When the rubble was cleared, there was not a single scratch on his body!







 As I was admiring this, I was ushered inside the temple by a priest and before I knew what was happening, I saw myself offering flowers, milk and water to Lord Shiva. Inside the sanctum sanctorum, there were stone carvings of the Pandavas from the epic Mahabharata. The most striking feature was that there was a carving of Lord Krishna as well, but in a meditative mood / posture. Lord Krishna is usually never found in this state anywhere.


We then went behind the temple and what you behold there sort of restores your faith, your belief in the fact that there surely is an Almighty somewhere. The temple would’ve been completely destroyed in the Himalayan Tsunami of 2013 had it not been for this gigantic boulder. As the cloud burst occurred on that fateful day, boulders of the size of small cars came hurtling down a high mountain top along with water mixed with slush from the Gandhi Sarovar (a lake about 3km just behind the temple). This particular boulder happened to position itself in such a way right behind the temple that the flow of water was directed on either sides of the temple! The locals now worship this huge stone as Bhim Shila (Bhim is one of the Pandavas known for his great physical strength and devotion to Lord Shiva; Shila means Stone). For me, that boulder was the highlight of the trip.



Bhim Shila (Monolith) right behind the Kedarnath Temple
The region was now covered by clouds and we were denied the view of the great mountains rising above the temple. With all these years of travelling in the mountains, I knew it was futile to sulk or complain at not having got a view of the mountains. They’ll show themselves only when they feel like. So we went into our rooms and rested for a while. In the evening, when I came out for a cup of tea, the clouds were still there and it had started raining. It was getting cold now. Two cups of tea and a couple of hot samosas (an Indian savoury) later, we went to the temple to witness the evening arati (worship).
It was getting even colder as the evening progressed. The rain didn’t help matters. We decided to go directly to the food canteen. We ate a very humble dinner and called it a night soon.

 We woke up early the next morning and packed our bags. We decided to visit the temple one last time before embarking on our return trek. And just as we were approaching the temple, we caught a glimpse of the mountains. That view where the temple is flanked by the majestic mountains… Mission accomplished!

Mission Accomplished!
Like two happy children, we found that there was a spring in our step and we came down to SonPrayag in no time.

Triyugi Narayan temple
Again, we had no immediate plans except that we needed to have lunch. It felt very hot and humid at SonPrayag. Over lunch, we decided to visit a temple called “Triyugi Narayan”. It was about 12km from SonPrayag. According to legend, this is the temple where the Indian God Shiva and Goddess Parvati got married. It is believed that the sacred wedding pyre burns to this day! And a priest keeps offering wood for burning on the pyre such that it never extinguishes. We found that there were many couples offering wood to this fire. That is the beauty of India… you find such lovely stories attached to many places you may visit.

From the Triyugi Narayan temple, we hopped on to our bike. We still had a couple of days in hand. We decided we’d go to Tunganath and Chandrashila. But that is another story!

Things to know before you plan:
  1. Number of days needed is 5 
  2. Total trekking days is 3
  3. Maximum altitude reached is 3584m
  4. Best time to visit is May-June and End August to Diwali (End October) 
  5. You can reach Kedarnath on a helicopter too which leaves from a helipad at Phata near Guptkashi. The to and fro cost comes to around INR 7000
For a detailed itinerary and package inquiries, please visit Real Adventure Gangotri

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