Trip Report Indian Himalaya trekking firms. Tapovan/Gaumukh?
- Thread starter Mister Tee on XC Skis
- Start date
-
Join the conversation with a better online community
We stopped for hot chai , local fresh apples( an apple growing area) and a loo break at a place at about 2500 M. ASL.
Gangotri has some grand views up the valley but not as good as further up the valley , towards the mouth of the Ganges where it emerges from the Gangotri glacier.
Our Leader and our Guide took us for a morning acclimatization hike on the foot route that leads to Kedertaal.
We saw some foreigners and their Nepali porters on this route.
The day came to start the High altitude trek. The porters, the mules, the cooks, everyone .. they were all ready. I wasn't feeling too flash but I hoped I would come back to life by walking .Our permits and passports had to be checked at the Nat. Park entrance. There is limit on how many people are permitted to trek this route up to the Glacier and beyond it to the Shivling base camp area etc.
I got chatting in Hindi with a visitor who had come from Uttar Pradesh to see the Yogi near the park entrance at the temple/ ashram.He said he had a fever. Little did I know such a complaint would afflict me too.
Heading up the Valley became harder work as we ascended towards Camp No. 1 at Chirbasa at 3600 M.. The Lack of Oxygen while walking up hill became apparent.
I know it is nuts but I looked at the snowy peak ahead and I said " That looks skiable!". Well some of the forum members who ski down Mt. Feathertop might be able to ski it but just walking towards it was becoming taxing!
Chirbasa means "The Place of Pines". The tree line for Himalayan Deodar cedars seemed to be below 4000 M. As you can see the place of pines is concentrated at the floor of the valley.
Just looking at these photos I am thinking "Eff it! I am going back to finish this trek , I shall prevail !" .
This is the Bhagirathi River at Chirbasa Camp site.
Looks flat.I know it is nuts but I looked at the snowy peak ahead and I said " That looks skiable!". Well some of the forum members who ski down Mt. Feathertop might be able to ski it but just walking towards it was becoming taxing!
Chirbasa means "The Place of Pines". The tree line for Himalayan Deodar cedars seemed to be below 4000 M. As you can see the place of pines is concentrated at the floor of the valley.
Sorry, had to be said
These photos of the scenery around the Cheerbasa campsite are all I have of this trek up to this point. I went no further :-( ,because the next morning I rose feeling very feeble, ill and incapable of continuing the trek.
At least I did get to see some 6000 + M. peaks up close, but not the Shivling peak at the Shivling base camp ,that I had travelled around the world to visit.
I am 49. Ms. A. completed the trek and she is on the uphill side of 65 so never say die!.
I did find myself feeling unwell at bed time at Chirbasa and I was having trouble getting to sleep plus I had a thumping headache.
However suchsymptoms usually pass, but the systemic fever had set in with a dry cough.
So on day two of the 9 night trek I had to admit defeat and return to Gangotri. Kapil jee , the head porter accompanied me and carried my pack for me because I was rather poorly , just cactus and had to rest every 10-20 minutes .
.Facing back down the valley for the 9 km trudge back to Gangotri where I was obliged to recuperate .The weather for the trek was perfect and the rest of the party continued on up to the Gangotri Glacier and beyond. They said it snowed on one night in particular while they were near the campsite at Nandanvan.
After about three or four days of resting in my hotel room in Gangotri I started to feel better if not struck by cabin fever .So I went out for a walk up and around the area each day .
I don't appear in many of my photos but here I am walking along the Kedartaal path , solo, high above Gangotri.
So many trekking teams, foreign trekkers and groups of porters and so on came and went while I was grounded in Gangotri , the last place you can drive to along that route, the end of the road. With no clinic or hospital nearby and no internet café anywhere I was truly left to tough it out on my own until my party returned from the best trek I have NEVER done.
I didn't speak very much English for a week!!.
I am going to have to go back to India, G*d dammit and finish this unfinished Himalayan trekking business!
NO, I did go and do some watercolour paintings of the scenery. I will upload a couple of photos of such paintings soon .Nice pics, cheers for the report. Your bout of illness reminds me of - tag teaming me mate for the dunny for a couple of days in Darjeeling, lying in foetal position spewing for a day in a high alpine meadow near Gilgit, being worried about how we would survive a bus trip out of Katmandu after a nasty beef steak meal the previous night, Gardia night runs near Gokyo, the list goes on. Point being sickness is part and parcel of travelling Pak, India, Nepal etc and hence must be included (down time) in the travel itinerary, for us it was negated by longer trips
We were booked to hike with a support team . When I became too poorly to continue I told my companions so and urged them to complete the itinerary without me.
I did get food poisoning on the second day in India in Delhi. I was vomiting all night and felt depleted for a day or two afterwards but 'better out than in'. I don't remember getting the runs at all the whole time I was in India and Sri Lanka on this trip.
Anyway after a very slow and stir crazy week of major down time in Gangotri the team from AQUA TERRA returned and so did my two walking friends.
So we headed by jeep from Gangotri back to Uttarkashi.
My Friend Ms. A. took also some photos on this trip which she has sent me. I shall post a couple of her shots soon.
Eventually we halted for a night at Rishikesh having travelled from Uttarkashi ALL DAY in a jeep. It was a LONG trip. It is where the Beatles stayed in India near the Ganges river. It is a hippie tourist hell in the newer part of the town and the old city is a chaotic place which feels more like Uttar Pradesh on the plains than a foothills town. We got out of there the next day.
Nice pics!
Pity Mitta Valley And Mt Wills didn’t have similar upheaval and folding to its land mass!
But “Road Accessl”looks a bit tricky!
Travelling by Jeep is the way to go in Uttarakhand. I had so much unplanned down time in Gangotri that I even pulled out my miniature watercolour set and made some very rough /quick impressions of the scenery.
I could imagine the Beatles stoned off their tits on Indian hash and ganga just bumming around, coming up with songs for the White Album, enjoying in the warm weather in Rishikesh back in the late 1960's, man.
It would have been a sleepier place back then, less touristy . However all of these towns are meat free. I am an Indian veg. diet kind of person but I like a nice egg or two and even eggs are banned in these River Ganges pilgrimage places.
Make something verboten and it regains a new appeal !
So the Next Day Ms. M. went back to Haridwar and onto Delhi while Ms. A and I went back up to 2000 M. ASL and spent time in Mussoorie , a British Raj era Hill Station, which was very enjoyable.
It had many places to take pleasant half day walks in the hills and funny signs, old shops, crumbling lane ways and good views of the distant high snowy peaks closer to the Indo/ Tibetan Border , from whence we had travelled from.
I tend to go as a native in terms of attire when on tour in the sub cont.. We walked up to Gun Hill .It got the heart pumping, being the highest point above the main bazaar.
The British were dropping like flies in colonial India........ possibly from all of the tropical illnesses and from maladies that are today easily cured with modern medicine ! We found the old British graveyard at Landour.Last edited:
The Local state Minister for tourism was visiting when were taking a walk and enjoying the views along the Camel's back road. I swear this was him/her.
Last edited:
Mussoorie is worth a visit. It sprawls across a high ridge and the weather is cooler there than it is in Dehra Doon.
Our Hotel was straight out of the 1920's Roger of the Raj era.It had 1890's furniture and fittings plus stuffed wildlife that the posh and well to do back in those times had shot for sport.
I spotted one the Team Leader's long lost cohorts from Team Bears who did not fare so well prior to conservation becoming more well understood.
