TREK TO ROOPKUND @15696 Feet – 8th June 2013

Mayank Doshi blogs on his experience of Trekking the magnificent lake of Roopkund, Uttaranchal, India in June 2013. Roopkund is a 6 day Trek excluding travel to the base camp and is one of the most famous trails since ancient India. Click here to know all the details/facts/history about the lake

"You can feel like a King for a brief moment but you can never conquer ‘His’ kingdom” 

-- Mayank Doshi

Trekked with Trekking Group - "Trek The Himalayas"

Click here to view their website

        

Trekking in Fresh Snow

 

 It’s the might of the Indian Himalayas that stuns everyone who has visited the divine land. Here I was, at an altitude of 14075ft above sea level, lying inside my tent in a small place called 'Bhagwabasa', on the 4th night of our 6-day Trek to the famous Roopkund Lake in the Garhwal Himalayas, Uttarakhand State of India and thinking if at all, we would be able to make it to the summit point. It was the night of 12th June 2013, just three days before heaven broke loose in Uttarakhand causing one of the deadliest disasters of all times. Everybody was wary of the inclement weather, but all one could do at that point of time was hope that the rain would stop. The cacophony of the rain drops falling on top of the tent, a barking dog at 2:30AM, along with a bumpy,stony and an inclined ground surface prevented most of us from getting sound sleep that night. We had experienced 20 minutes of hailstorms the previous afternoon and it hadn’t stopped raining since evening . The weather was getting worse. All I was waiting, was for the clock to strike 3:30AM and for the whistle to be blown by our Trek leader, so that we can all be ready to leave by 4:00AM, the scheduled departure time for the summit day where we would reach the mysterious lake of Roopkund at 15686ft. Alas, that was not to be!!!. The whistle didn’t blow at 3:30AM, and neither did it blow when the first rays of sun hit us at around 4:00AM. 

View from Bhagwabasa camp early in the moring

It had been raining heavily. People gradually started coming out of their tents from around 5AM in the morning and most of them woke up with Huge Expletives from their mouth followed by a dozen Exclamation marks in excitement. The eyeballs and the mouth both expanded almost in disbelief, to see how the look of the mountain had changed from the previous evening to this morning. We could see fresh snowfall in the mountain that we were supposed to summit. The snow was shining white. The excitement was now full to the brim and only one thing stood to be fought – the weather. And the only way to fight the weather was to hope and pray that it would clear soon. 

 It was an exciting journey so far from the time the nineteen of us in the group first met together at our base camp in 'Loharjung' and exchanged formal pleasantries. The bonding was different now after 4 days of trekking together, spending time in front of bonfire and sharing life experiences. After trekking for 6kms on first day, we reached the last village before we entered uninhibited regions of the jungle – the village named Didina where we got to visit beautiful wheat fields and also saw potato farming.

Grasslands called "Bugyals"

 

The next day changed the landscape completely. We had started trekking uphill in the dense forests, eating wild berries that looked like small strawberries and just a little while after noon we were at an altitude above the tree-lines. Above that altitude, there were no trees but just vast grasslands as large as multiple golf courses merged together. In local language these are called as ‘Bugyals’ and a few hours later we reached our next campsite at a place called ‘Ali Bugyal’ after trekking for nearly 10Kms for the day. The location was a photographer’s delight as we could see the entire jungle with trees below us in the valley – almost as if the earth had spun upside down.

After a difficult second day, the third day was supposed to be the easiest day amongst all days, wherein we wouldn’t be gaining much altitude, but just traversing across the hills along its periphery with very minimal altitude change and that too for just 6 kms. But believe it or not, the third day turned out to be “The most difficult day” in the entire itinerary. The reason – Yes, you probably guessed it right, the weather. We had walked for more than two and a half hours in a heavy torrential downpour with lightening striking loud in the sky. Being an open grassland surface without trees, humans were the tallest good conductors of electricity. Being aware of the situation and to reduce any casualties, if at all if any strikes, our trek leader asked us to maintain a distance of at least 5 meters between each of us. We reached the next campsite at a place called ‘Patar Nachani’ just before noon, completely drenched and hands as numb as those of a paralyzed patient. The only saviour was the hot Dal-Rice that we had for lunch that instilled a little bit of warmth within us. Surprisingly, by 2 o clock, Mr. Sun decided to pay us a visit for the first time in the day and sunlight felt like heaven. 

Campsite At Patarnachani

We quickly put all our wet clothes on top of our tents and ran out to sunlight. ‘Patar Nachani’ was so beautiful, that we could see clouds beneath us and snow clad peaks right on the horizon, a perfect teaser to what was coming ahead and what we all had been waiting for – SNOW! 

That's a toilet tent - But the beauty is speechless!!

It was now time to change gears and take a steep rise in the altitude. In order to reduce the tiredness and take inspiration from each other, for a very long period of time, the entire group walked as a train – one behind the other. The advantage being that the slowest mover was inspired to keep up with the pace of the group whereas the quick ones could use the additional time for resting/photographing while on the move. After a heavy uphill climb we reached a small ‘Ganesha’ temple where we performed a small puja and distributed ‘Chikki’ as Prasad. The campsite at Bhagwabasa was now just 2kms away and we could see some snow patches on our way which we had to cross. This was the first time we encountered snow in this trek. Had we come 2 weeks earlier, our entire campsite at Bhagwabasa would have been upon snow, however, this is how quickly snow melts within 2 weeks. We were amazed to see the terrain on which the campsite was built. It was inclined and stony and we wondered how we were going to sleep on that, especially with the weather turning chilly. As much fun as it was to enjoy the romantic weather, we all hoped for it to clear soon as the mystery lake of Roopkund was just 3kms away from us. I was lying down inside my tent and waiting for the weather to clear. We were already late by around 3 hours. Any further delay meant we would have had to scrap our summit plan and return downhill. But, at around 7:30AM in the morning, it magically stopped raining and voila, we were ready to leave for summit by 8AM after a quickie breakfast.

The stunning snow

I doubt if anyone even brushed their teeth on that day, but who cares? The incline towards the summit, even though difficult was very enjoyable because of the fresh white snow on which we were trekking. Everyone had put their sunglasses on, lest you could be hit by Snow-blindness (with sun rays reflecting off the snow) because everything was just white out there. Probably some of the white washing detergents manufacturing companies should take a trip in fresh snow and then set their ‘benchmark-white’ accordingly. After trekking for about 2.5hrs, we reached the summit of Roopkund lake, a beautiful, serene lake amidst the mountains giving a scenic view of the entire valley that it rifts. A large portion of the lake was still frozen and the picture of this breathtaking view might only be as good as a thousand words, but the experience of being there is priceless and beyond any description. No wonder, hundreds of skeletons centuries old are still preserved in this place which is fully covered in snow for over 8 months in a year.

The skeleton @display near the lake

Finally - the pic of the Lake whose beauty is unmatched

We started our trek down along the same route from where we had ascended and we met a few other trekkers in the opposite direction on our way causing really awkward crossings on a narrow trail. The trek down was more difficult because around noon time, snow starts melting really fast and it could get very tricky on such soft snow which also caused one of our fellow trekker to slip downhill for around 50feet in the snow. One of the most memorable moments would be having hot Maggi at an altitude of 15000ft while we were trekking down. We then had DalKhichdi along with pure rainwater falling on our plates at Bhagwabasa for Lunch and immediately left downhill to return to our campsite at ‘PatarNachani ‘ – the same place where we had camped on the third day. After such a huge descent on day 5, the last day of our trekking was the day we trekked down the most – for about 12kms. 

Bedni Bugyal

We went through a different route this time crossing ‘Bedni Bugyal’ and entered into forestland where the presence of rhododendron trees was evident. The soil had become so muddy that it was difficult for my shoes to grip the surface, resulting in myself slipping twice and getting my bag and hands dirty. We then reached one crossing of the river ‘Neelganga’ , another crossing of which we had crossed on day one. After another 500metres of steep incline we had to walk downhill for about 2km and we reached the village of ‘Wan’ which was the last village having road connectivity. We had thus successfully trekked for 53kms over a span of 6 days starting at an altitude of about 7500feet at Loharjung and reaching more than double of that to 15696feet and we immediately celebrated our trek by drinking ‘Fanta’ as we hit the first shop in Wan(I know that’s lame, but truth is truth). 


Trekking trips like these etch a special place inside our memory. We shall never forget our trek-leader’s constant motivation to keep going and his ability of fooling us into believing that the campsite is just at the end of the ridge – even though the destination was far from that.The deliciously cooked sumptuous meals with sweets like ‘GulabJamun’ and hot Manchow soup at such remote places made us all feel like royals being taken care of and at the same time, dodging cattle shits and answering nature's calls at unearthly hours made us feel like nomadics - No gain without pain, as the wise say. To say that this was just another trip would be an understatement because after trips like these, we probably undergo a drastic change in the way we look at the world - Through the eyes of a painter who yearns to paint in the canvas of such a vast blue sky, through the eyes of a photographer, who can go miles away to get that ‘one’ perfect sunset shot, through the eyes of a poet, who seeks inspiration from the glowing peaks and flowing streams of water and through the eyes of a philosopher who is convinced that there lies a superpower within all of us.

The forest path !!! 

  
An Afterthought :- As lucky as we were to have left Uttarakhand on the evening of 15th June, just 12 hours before calamity struck Uttarakhand, my heart goes out to all those souls who have lost their lives and their near and dear ones and to the locals who have lost their source of livelihoods. May God give those who survived, the strength and courage to see through the situation  

Image Credits -  Sarfaraz Siddiqui for Bhagwabasa View and Bedni Bugyal images

To read my other blogs :- 
1) Trekking to Dhak bahiri (One of the toughest Treks in Western Ghats) click the below link Trek To Dhak Bahiri
2) Trekking to Hampta Pass (@14100 feet), Himachal Pradesh, click the link Trek to Hampta Pass