First High Altitude trek to Kedarkantha (12,500 feet) by IndiaHikes

We booked our tickets on redbus from Chandigarh.

Fun Fact: There's only one Volvo Semi Sleeper bus leaving from Chandigarh, (Sector 43, bus stop number 38), to Dehradun, that leaves by 6.30 am, and arrives at Dehradun by 11. Rest of the buses are local, which leaves every 2 hours. Will not recommend it for people with motion sickness.

Tip: Go to the bus stand and ask them about the local bus leaving to Naitwar, or Sankri. Local Bus fare is 350 rs.

The cabs costed us 1000 each. That was bonkers. But we had no choice. We went ahead with it. Rendezvous point was the railway station. We woke up early, and headed to that place by 6ish. That's where we met our trek group. We had spoken a few times over the whatsapp group, but getting to meet all of them in person was exciting. Some were solo, some were with their partners, best friends, sisters, and two people from Dubai! There were few people from Bangalore as well! We started off from the railway station around 7ish. Next stop: Gainchwan Gaon.

Tip: If you are going through Indiahikes, the spelling of Netwar is Naitwar. So, if you want to check the place out on maps, search for," Netwar".

Roads are a bit horrible, as it's not really a highway. But... But the scenic beauty and the view that one gets to see on their way to Netwar is something straight from heaven! You will be driving next to Tons River for quite some time. Have you ever seen a crystal clear river? I haven't. You could shoot your wedding here, or a movie, or anything that screams for some natural beauty.

We reached the base, Gainchwan Gaon. Altitude: 5,600 ft, Time taken: 8 – 9 hours drive from Dehradun. We roamed around this quiet village and be enchanted by the sound of the Rupin river.

We had our briefing session, which was followed by a medical card being issued to all. This was a bit exciting for me, as they said that we'll need to carry this card everywhere, and they will be checking on our oximeter and bp reading from time to time.

An important point to add here. You cannot take bath here. You'll fall sick otherwise. Water is super duper ultra cold here. Washing hands post dinner was traumatizing. A month back, I had gone for triund trek. What we got for dinner was maggie, dal and chawal. So, being under the same assumption, I was expecting maggie for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Boy was I surprised! What we got for dinner was Matar (Peas) and Paneer (Cottage Cheese), Mixed Veg, Hot Rotis, rice, Jalebi, and hot water to drink. I wasn't prepared for this. None of us were. Special kudos to Indiahikes and their cooking crew!

It was the month of Jan, and the temperature just didn't feel like climbing on top. Single digits, and 3 layers went hand in hand, and god bless you, if you decided to wash your hands. Girls were given a mini palace, with a nice view. Boys were put in a shed. Sexist much?

Thanks to Indiahikes, and their demo on how to pack your bags, tie your shoelaces, things to take and how to layer during the trek, we didn't waste much time and were up and ready to start by 8.30 am. Also, to the foodies out there, we had Rava Idli, Sambhar, Chai, and sandwiches for the trek. On a personal note, I had the pre-travel jitters just before we could start off with the trek. The thought of trekking for 6 kms, in this cold winter was something I wasn't sure my body will be ready for.

Because of the low temperature in morning, one usually assumes to wear more number of layers, before starting the trek. But that’s not the case. On your day 1, you have to wear max 2 layers. It starts to get hot as you are trekking up, thanks to the sun, and the exertion that your body is going through.

On our way, we crossed a few villages, creeped out a few locals, got judged by a few as well. Well, they were used to the cold. I wasn't. Also, imagine yourself, trekking up, panting for breath, stopping every few meters for water and then you see this local, who casually covers the same distance in a jiffy. You will, for sure be intimidated. I was intimidated by my fellow trekkers, toh yeh locals kya cheez.

Few hours go past by, and every step seems like a struggle. We finally reached a dhaba, and had omelette maggie. After few minutes of rest, we started again. Now, by this time, my body had one question. Why? I am among the laziest animal you will ever come across, who loves his natural habitat of comfy bed, laptop, coffee and movies. What does an animal do when he’s trekking in a dense forest? Whines! Yes, he whines. Since, we were reaching 7,800 feet, your body tends to get tired, because of the low atmospheric pressure and your body not getting enough oxygen. It was really hard for people who came from sea shores.

By 2.30 pm, we finally reached the base camp. I couldn’t feel my legs, and the last thing I wanted to do was some exercise. But, boy did it help! After stretching, we proceeded towards the welcome drink, and lunch. Kadi Chawal, and Halwa for lunch. Temperature: 5-8 degrees. Tummy full.

So, the weird part of this whole trek was, not the cold, but the washrooms. I have never done my deed in a dry toilet. We did buy toilet roll, in case nature calls. But, I couldn’t wrap my head around the concept of paper, and no water. As you see in the picture, these are the dry toilets. There were rules, how to shout, “excuse me”, out loud, so that you don’t get a surprise to see inside, always go with a pee buddy, and once you are done with the deed, use the soil in the bucket and cover it up. Ta-dah. Potty training done.

We spent most of our afternoon getting to know everyone. I am really bad with names, so comedy ensues. Later that evening, we decided to gather around and play few games inside the dinner tent, you know the classic, Dumb Charades. It got dark pretty fast, and as soon as we stepped outside the dinner tent, something was different. It was dark. Pitch dark. All we had to do was, look up. YES! The sky was lit with millions of stars! You get to see only few hundred stars, when you are in the city, thanks to all the light pollution. But here, my goodness! You could get an existential crisis! Going to quote a line from my favourite comic,

This was the exact thought that was going through my mind. We decided to lie down on the grass, and just stare at the beautiful sight that got us all together! I really missed my Nikon. This was for the first time, that I had to leave them back home, as I had promised to myself, that for one trip, I will go enjoy, live in the moment, and capture each and every details in memories, that I can then share with everyone, in near future to come. So, that’s what I did. I did pester few people who had their cameras along, so that we could take those long exposures! :D

Next morning, we woke up at 6 am and had to leave by 8 am. Important tip coming up.

Tip: There’s something called as offloading your bags. So what happens here is that they will take your luggage, and it would be sent to the next campsite on the mules. It costs you 1k. We didn’t opt for offloading, since we wanted to save up on every penny. Opt for offloading if,

a) you have a really heavy backpack,

b) you have shoulder and back issues,

c) you have trust issues with your bags,

d) you got ego issues with taking help from the mules

On this day, we were promised snow. After an hour of walking, we saw this patch of snow. It was WHITE! White and Soft!! It’s like holding clouds in your palms, but you can eat them! We spent half and hour here, because we couldn’t get over this! Few hours into the trek, and there was snow, EVERYWHERE! Let the pictures speak for themselves.

We spent almost an hour at this serene snowy paradise. Our trek leader kept telling us that you'll find more of it on your way ahead, but we couldn't resist! We could finally make snow balls!

After 5 hours of trekking through snow, we finally made it to Pukhrola! It's also known as the KK Base camp.

We had Rajma Chawal that afternoon. Wow! Like Wow! It’s close to 0 Degrees, and here I am, having Rajma Chawal, while having this majestic mountain view ahead of me, and also, I am surrounded by snow. I guess this is what heaven feels like. Not like I would ever know how it feels. People who know me, can explain why there’s a place reserved in hell, right next to Satan, for me. 0:)

Tip: If it’s day time, please don’t go into the tents to catch a nap. Because it’s at that high altitude, tents get weirdly warm from the inside. The heat radiates, and you will end up with fever and a bad headache. We learnt it the hard way.

Sunset, at KK base camp, was B-E-A-UTIFUL! As soon as the darkness crept in, so did the bitter cold. Temperature dropped down to minus. Thankfully, they arranged for an anghithi for all of us. For people who are wondering what an anghithi is, it’s a metal box, where you place coal and wood, and use it for cooking, or in our case, warming up our body. If it wasn’t for this, we would have certainly been one with the almighty god.

Right after sunset, our trek leader, Satej asked us if we would like to see the sunrise from the summit tomorrow. I knew where he was going with this, so I hesitated. Everyone said Hell Yeah! So for this to happen, you had to get up at 3 am and leave for the summit by 4am. Dinner was served by 6.30 pm, and we were off to bed by 7pm. But the most interesting part of the trek happened now! For dinner, we got Hot gulabjamuns!! GULABJAMUN! It’s minus outside and we are getting hot gulabjamun here. Holy hell! Once we were done hogging on the delicious dinner, we had to get back to bed.

Now, the fascinating thing was, at night, the temperature drops down to -10 degrees. So, the moment we woke up at 2.30 am, it was COLD! Like fuck cold!! Changing back to our trek pants was a terror! And the best part, the nature called. So, washing your hands, at this temperature was not easy. I couldn’t feel my fingers, and by this time, I was too scared to talk about my toes.

We started by 4 am, and boy, was it cold. So, I was wearing,

1. T-Shirt

2. Fleece Jacket

3. Another Fleece Jacket

4. Thick Hoodie

2....

1...

Spreading light across the plains and plateaus

You remember, how back in school, we used to draw this one scenery, with two mountains, and sun rising in between those two peaks, yeah. We saw that in real life. Our guide was like, you’ll know when the sun will rise. I was like, it’s just a sunrise. It’s just going to get bright, right? No. We kept staring in between the bright spot, wondering when the sunrise will happen, and then for a brief period in time, everything became silent, and this one ray of light hit us. You’ll be wondering, what BS. But you have to see it to believe it. The sunrise had started. People were running about clicking pictures, recording videos. Where was I? Next to my partner, held her hand, and wished her Good Morning, and thanks for being here. We just wanted to enjoy everything, and not get in the flow of clicking pictures. It was a sight to behold! Within seconds, sun was out in all its glory.

Few minutes later, our trek leader told everyone to gather around. He just asked us to close our eyes as we were going to do some meditation. Lot of people hesitated, as why would you close your eyes, when you have the best sunrise of your lifetime right in front of your eyes!? He persisted, and we all followed his advice. He said, “Now go back in time, when you thought about this trek for the first time. Now fast forward to when you finally got about to book the tickets, and decided to be a part of this wonderful journey. Now, trace your thoughts, and the feeling, that you had before you started on this trek. Go back to the moment you reached Dehradun and met your trek group, then the evening, when you reached the starting point. Now, in these past two days, you walked a lot, you put your body to this unimaginable stress, that it wasn’t expecting. Last night's dinner, and the cold, the stars and friends, waking up at 3 am, in minus degree and trekking up this mountain, all of that, all of these 3-4 months of preparation, was for this. This right here, is what you all worked so hard for! Now open your eyes, and behold the KEDARKANTHA SUMMIT!”

We spent 1 hour, 20 minutes on the summit. We learnt of all the peaks, and their stories behind it. There was this Swargarohini peak, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swargarohini), which is famous for being the resting point of the 4 Pandavas. You get to see various peaks, mainly – Bandar punch, Kalanag, Har Ki dhun, Swarga-rohini, Yamunotri range, Dhauladhar range, Chansil Pass, Rupin valley, Har ki Dun valley. Some of the other peaks you see include Jaonti, Gangotri, Draupadi ka Danda and Jorkanden.

KEDARKANTHA PEAK, The History, the name literally means the throat of lord Shiva (Kedar refers to Lord Shiva and Kantha means Throat) “He is the DESTROYER of the universe only to recreate it, Lord Shiva.” . The belief says that it was supposed to be the original Kedarnath temple but Lord Shiva, who disguised himself as a cow hiding from the Pandavas was disturbed during meditation by village men, cows (Lord Shiva) mooed and disappeared to the present Kedarnath.

Descend is always the easiest part, but not when you have to walk on ice! As the snow had just set in a few weeks prior to our trek, it had turned into ice. Those damn spikes aren’t useful here, as you tend to keep slipping. We all slipped at some point or the other. The secret is to not walk on ice. Find your own path, and then jump down the snow, like little rabbits. But make sure you jump sideways, as if you land on a rock, you can still maintain balance. One person had twisted her leg whilst doing such a thing. Doing this is scary, but is more fun! :)

Best part of this trek, was climbing down in snow. I’ve trekked quite a bit, but it was always over rocks. This, this was entirely different. You could SLIDE DOWN! Sliding down was so much fun, and the best part was, it was fast! And you couldn’t get hurt. :D

Our technical guide, had gotten his skateboard along, and was going down to the KK base camp, by using his skates. To put this in perspective, it would take us 30-40 minutes for us to reach the base, and for him, just mere 5-10 minutes! That’s it!! He was good! But I’ll leave snowboarding checklist for some other time.

We soon got tired, as rather than just walking down, we were running. We played in snow, as the most difficult part was over, and all that was left for us to do was reach the next campsite and sleep. Let the pictures do some talking now.

Tip: An important tip here. On the summit day, make sure you layer yourself properly, and also, offload your backpacks. It helps a lot!

Our next camp site Munaila. And boy, was it beautiful!! All the campsites on this trek had something unique about them. Surrounded by tall oak trees on all sides, with a view of Himachal Pradesh Himalayan range, and snow all around. There was a sense of sadness, as the trek was coming to an end. I had no clue of how these 3 days just went past by. All of this seemed a bit surreal to me. A week back, I was at home, watching movies and playing games, and here I am, on a high altitude trek, amidst Himalayas.

Our evening was spent sharing stories, learning more about one another, playing cards. An interesting thing that our trek leader said was, “I’ve seen a lot of couples who come on such treks. It either gets them really close, or drifts them apart. I’ve seen people meet for the first time on the trek, and get married a year later. A trek gets really demanding, and you either have to take care of your partner, stay around and make sure he/she is in no harms, or you just get annoyed and leave. So, if one wants to test his relationship out, go on a trek together.”

Taking care of this fool throughout was troublesome, but I loved doing that. It’s a different experience, to travel with someone you know well enough that you’ll always be their pee buddy. I am a man who hates PDA’s and being all emotional, but this trip changed me a bit. Well, good for her! :D

Pit Stop 6: Jula-ka-talab

The next day, we trekked down to Jula-ka-talab. It’s a combination of two lakes, hence the name. The best part of the whole trek was skipping ice over the frozen lake. Check out the videos, and you’ll see the noobness in all its glory!

On closing notes, I would like to add this, trekking changes you. Every trek will teach you something new. It will make you appreciate the small little things that you take for granted, like that hot water in your bathroom, or the online ordering of food, because you are too lazy to walk to the kitchen and cook something, or even the warm blanket you are in right now. When you are deprived of all this, and made to live on basic needs, that's when you realize the simplicity of life! If you are depressed or tensed, I urge you to go visit the mountains. Just take a break, pack the needful and go explore! Stay at someone's house, not a hotel, learn their ways. You'll soon understand why people up there are the happiest, unlike us city folks. Frankly speaking, mountains are calling, isn't just some fancy catchphrase to promote some brand. If you get the call, go give them a visit. I can accompany you if you like! :D

Special thanks to everyone, who had to bear with me on the trek, and for these wonderful pictures!! Thanks a lot!! <3

Also, if anyone comes down to Bangalore, and would like to plan some trip in-around the city, then feel free to hit me up! =^_^=

Shivang Kapoor Signing off!