Nov 17, 2015

Roopkund Trek

Posted in trek, self

One of my friend asked me if I had any plans for Dussehara vacations. I wasn’t having any, so he asked me about Roopkund as it can be done in two days, which we would be left with after taking out the travel time from Delhi. Being an extended weekend, I really wanted to go out somehwere and could not think of a place. The friend who seeded this though got little sick and dropped out so now, there were three of us for the trek. Me, Kiran (from Bombay) and Silva (from Brazil). Kiran and I were very enthusiastic to complete this trek and we chalked out our trek plan to make it possible. Silva had done a trek to Tungnath with Kiran and my friend Akshay few week back.

So we started on Wednesday; the cab picked me up around 10:30 in the night. After a whole night and day drive, next day we reached village Wan around 5 p.m. and to make most of our lost time, we started the trek that day itself, after arranging for our driver’s accomodation. We did get few advices for not leaving for trek at such hours, but we went on to stay on our chalked plan (we just had 4 days to complete this trek).

Calling ourselves bad mofos; we went past the Wan village down to the bridge on river Neelganga. By then it was completely dark. Holding our torches, we started to climb. Our aim was, to reach Bedini around 11 in night. Even though, we were advised against it in the village, we thought that it is better to utilize this time in trek than to stay. It was around 10 p.m.; when we reached first camping site Gharoli Patal, Bedini was still 3 km. But after staying there for few mins for snacks; we decided to camp there only as it was very cold and windy and we were tired too because of the long journey.

Next morning we started our day early (around 6) by leaving for Bhojbasa. We were happy that stopping at Gharoli Patal, the previous night, didn’t cost us much time when we reached Bedini. There we stopped for almost half an hour, admiring the beauty of vast meadows and clicking few clicks; we left for our next stop.

It was around lunch, that we reached Patharnachuni. Soon after having food, we left for our final stop, Bhojbasa. Walking forward there was a steep ascent to Kalu Vinayak, Silva was walking a bit slow by then. Kiran and I discussed, if he could walk with Silva and I’ll come back to carry the bag from Bhojbasa. I tried walking fast and reached Bojbasa early, where I left the bag and rushed back towards Kalu Vinayak. Kiran and Silva were resting there. Silva was feeling better now and didn’t let me carry his bag. We all walked together to bhojbasa and managed to reach well before evening.

We did a little walk around the campsite for acclimatization , having tea and water. We pitched our tents inside the forest hut. Although a lot colder, it was less windy than Bedini here.

Next morning, we started for Roopkund around 6. We packed our tents and left our bag there in the hut. It was that cold and windy that some ice started to appear inside water bottle. After one and a half hour walk, we reached Roopkund. It was Silva’s first experince of such altitude and cold and hence he was walking with slow and steady pace, catching his breath every now and then. There was some firewood left from previous fire; which I lit and warmed ourselves while waiting for Silva. Soon Silva arrived and after resting there for a while, we left for Junargali. After few minutes of climb, we reached Junargali. It was windy was clear in Junargali with magnificent view of Mt.Trisul(7120m) and Nandaghunti(6309m).

The door like structure with bell hanging by it looked very inviting. A thought came to my mind for going ahead from there to Hemkund but we were running short of time. We needed to move back as soon as we can if wanted to make it back to Wan village by night. Inspite of his slow speed, Silva really wanted to climb up to Junargali so we waited there (stairs towards Shila Samudra) for him, collecting litter there left by previous trekkers.

After about an hour or so stay at Junargali, we started our way back to Bhojbasa. We stopped for some munching anf there we found another group of three people, who had similar plans of reaching Wan today. I really wanted to go via Ali Bugyal; but that would have required 2-3 hours more than usual and it seemed, that it was too late for that. When we reached Pattahrnachuni in an hour or so, Silva was walking good. It was now sunset time when we reached Gharoli Patal. After taking a lot of shortcuts on descents; my legs were tired. I was exhausted and had very less control on my legs. By the time we reached Neelganga bridge, it was already dark and I was out of water and thirsty till that time. I waited there with other group for Kiran and Silva. We started our last patch of trek to Wan village. When we reached the village from Neelganga bridge, it seemed that we lost our way which we took before. After asking for directions and wasting around 2 hours, we managed to reach roadside around 9:30 p.m. where our cab driver was waiting for us.

We took little more than two trek days for this trek from Wan village to Roopkund. Looking back, I think that if we had one more day, one day stay at Ali Bugyal would have given the perfect finish to this trek.

I am a software engineer, based in Delhi, India. I was born in Sonbhadra, raised in Varanasi/Allahabad and graduated from Lucknow.

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