TAPOVAN : My first high-altitude expedition (2nd to 9th SEP 2015)

Born and brought-up in Dandeli and being very close to Sahyadri, I am always attached to the nature. 
For me, Himalaya had always been a dream place to visit. But knowing the risks involved in high altidudes, finding the right group was a big issue.
I got to know that one of my friend had planned to join some group for a easy trek in the Himachal region but that trek was cancelled because of the Nepal earth-quake.
I spoke to her and got the details about the trekking group and was mentally on-board for their next expedition.

Getting approval for 2 weeks leave from my manager was actually easier than I thought.

The trek was lead by Satish, but the overall expedition was planned and overseen by our Master, Acharya Raghu.
I spoke to Satish who explained me the details of expedition along with how to prepare for the same physically.

I had a good experience of trekking, but high altitude trekking is a different ball game all together. So I was a bit nervous, at the same time I was determined to make sure I do not fail the entire group.
As training for this I started a 1.5 KM walk + 3.3 KM run for almost 2 months.

Also as part of preparations I had to shop quite a few things including rucksack, sleeping bag and shoes.

Laying out a day by day events by glancing into my memory(yes, I was obligated to remember them so that I can explain to my kid sis)..

29th August: Since we were in the second batch, the organizers were already in Gangotri so only 3 of us(myself, my roommate & one girl, Satya) were travelling from Bangalore in the Karnataka Express train at 7.30 PM.. 

30th August: Train journey, read a bit of Aavarana(Kannada Novel by S.L.Bhyrappa)

31st August : Reached Delhi @ 11 AM.. It was the meeting place for people coming from different places. I met quite a few experienced mountaineers there. Freshened up in waiting room, roamed around a bit.. At 4 PM we boarded train to Haridwar.. Reached Haridwar at around 8PM.. We roamed around Haridwar a bit and spent that night in a hotel..

1st September: Left Haridwar in a Bolero at 6 AM. Lunch at Uttar Kashi. Reached Gangotri by evening. Short briefing by Satish. Actual plan of acclimatization at Gangotri was dropped & we were supposed to start the trek next morning.
We also met the guys from 1st batch who had just returned to Gangotri the same evening.


2nd September: Took parcel for breakfast(1 stuffed parota) and started to trek at 7 AM. The walk was divided into 2 stages. 1st till Purbasha (8 KM from Gangotri) take a short break, have breakfast and walk till Bhojbasha (further 6 KM).
The hike to Bhojbasha was not a very tiring one, as the altitude gain was very gradual, but it seamed to be a never ending trek. Music player was of great help here. I reached Bhojbasa at around 3 PM. There were 3 seniors who had already reached. We 4 sat for a chat with the the researchers from IIT Roorkee(who stay in Bhojbasha to study about glaciers). At around 5PM we had tea, by then almost everyone except 2 had reached Bhojbasha. Satya was way behind and a senior was helping her. I along with 2 other seniors set out for the rescue as it was about to get dark. On the way we had the opportunity to see a heard of Bharal (Himalayan sheep).

The route from Gangotri to Gaumukh

Breakfast break @ Purbasha

3rd September: Started trek to Tapovan at 8 AM. Walk till Gaumukh, which is 4 KM from Bhojbasha is pretty straight forward. Then we had the awesome experience of crossing the Gangotri glacier. Yes it was very risky, so we, the first timers were strictly warned to follow seniors. The seniors were finding routes carefully and once a clear route was found we were building canes(Cane is a heap of 3-5 stones, which shows route. We are not supposed to follow existing canes because crevasses are formed pretty quickly in glaciers & rarely people travel to Tapovan. We were in first group & next group can follow without spending much energy).. As leading team, crossing glacier was an awesome experience as we hit dead-end(crevasses) quite a few time and the distance covered on glacier was almost 1.5 times the actual distance. Soon after crossing glacier we had to climb a mountain which is almost 70 degree steep. I reached our base camp in Tapovan at 2 PM.(The Base camp was already setup for the 1st batch).

Gaumukh

4th September: Acclimatization at Tapovan (14500 ft). Casual trek to see the gangotri glacier, Nandanvan & Kailash Dome. Nandanvan which leads to Bhagirathi group of peaks is a treat to watch. We also spotted a TARN(a mountain lake) during the trek.

Nandanvan and Bhagirathi 1, 2 & 3

5th September: We woke up to see our tents covered with a layer of snow. The day started with a casual trek in the morning. Evening it was time for Neel Taal. Neel taal is a mountain lake full of blue algae. It looks blue during morning & evening because of play of the sun-rays and algae. When we were in Neel Taal we could experience the ground shake because of an Avalanche in Mt.Sumeru mountain. 

At Neeltaal

Casual trak

6th September: Again a Casual trek in the morning. We saw the plaques of 2 mountaineers who died trying to summit Mt.Shivling. 
There was a fresh kill of a Bharal by a snow leopard. Master gave a lesson on snow leopards seeing the foot steps. Post lunch we trekked to see Shivling & Sumeru glaciers on the way back visited te ashram of Karnataka Baba(he is called so because he is from Udupi).

At 78, with 8 Himalayan expeditions under his belt, Krishnayya sir is always an inspiration

Majestic Mt. Shivling. In our 5 days stay at Tapovan, this opened up only once.

7th September: Attempt to Chota Shivling. The climate was changing drastically during our stay in Tapovan & since it had snowed in the 2-3 days the attempt to Chota Shivling summit was difficult. Also the last trek to summit was technical climb. We were asked to trek as far as possible. I was climbing at a decent pace. We had to climb on rocks, most of which were shaky and unstable. So everybody returned to camp which I was not aware of, and I was climbing alone.
Later I got to know that master was tracking me using his binoculars. I climbed till 17500 ft and returned back. When I returned Master had decided that we shall cross the glacier the same day & walk back till Bhojbasa as the climate was getting worse & it would be risky to wait for next day(as per plan). So for me that day was a hell, as I had a backlog of climbing Chota Shivling.
We stayed in the forest guest room(a circular room with nothing inside). Our master checked with the police in Bhojbasha about any casualty, we were sad to hear that 1 army man had slipped into a crevasse and his body was not found for 3rd day running. That is when few of my team mates(esp. Girls) understood the gravity of crossing a glacier!!

Team just before starting the descend from Tapovan

8th September: We had breakfast and started our walk back to Gangotri. Pretty straight forward but long walk. Reached Gangotri by afternoon and rested.

9th September: Rest day. Evening went for a small walk to Pandav gufa & also to the place where Kedar Ganga river joins Bhagirathi. Also saw the small hydro-electric power station.

Temple at Gangotri

The play of light on snow clad mountains. This is common in morning and evening in Himalayas

The same mountain in the day light

Gangotri ghat

10th September: We boarded Govt bus to Haridwar at 5AM. We were held up for 2 hours in between because of land slide. Reached Haridwar by 7PM.

11th September: Movie for passing time & traveled to Delhi by train.

12th September: Boarded Sampark kranti express to Bangalore at 6.30 AM.


All in all I enjoyed a pleasant 7 days with no network in a ever changing Himalayan climate.. Also I read a Kannada novel after 2 years!!

Finally we arrived at the Yeshwantpur Station with some great memories to cherish & feeling a lot healthier and with appreciation from master that we(I and my roommate), being first timers were much better than few guys who were in the expedition for 2nd or 3rd time(also an advice to do basic mountaineering course)...

A few other pics from the trek.

Kumara Parvatha trek in Mansoons - June 20th & 21st 2015

Well to start off I checked for blogs on Kumaraparvata(KP) trek. I found some fantastic blogs. While most of the blogs written were for dry weather trek, the one we planned(or rather did not plan well) was when Monsoons was in full flow. 
Having previous experience of covering few difficult terrains, I just thought "so many people trek KP, whats great in that lets just do it".

Coming to my experience, being a guy who is born and brought up in Dandeli, Sahyadri, esp during monsoons, has never failed to amaze me. Last year we the green route trek, which was simply awesome. KP trek was a backup plan then, i.e. if RPF dint allow us to go ahead with the illegal Green Route trek we thought of covering KP.

Since we did not face any problem in Green Route trek, KP remained a distant dream. My roommate, Harsha started bugging me to plan this trip in summer and I told him let the pre-monsoons start, we shall plan. But when we actually traveled it was monsoons. Karthik, Harsha, Nataraj & Vinayak who were with me for Green Route trek got ready along with 1 more guy.. Without any doubt the expectations were very high..

Preparations:-
Most of the preparations were based on the reviews from travel websites and blogs. Also my roommate's friends had trekked so the inputs were taken.
I called up Bhattara Mane to intimate them that we will be coming for Lunch on Saturday. The elderly gentleman from the other side said "Tumba male untu, namma mane varige barlikke adilla, munde hattodu tumba kashta ide" which translates to "Its pouring heavily, you can come till our house, but its difficult to climb further". I replied that we will try our best.(Most of the people in my team were unaware of this conversation).
I asked my roommate to call the forest officer Jayaraj, but we couldn't reach him. Also we dint bother trying much. This Ultimately turned out to be a blunder.

The original plan was:
Sat, June 20 : Kukke to Bhattara Mane(6.5 KM) + Bhattara Mane to Kallu Mantapa (2.5 KM)
Stay overnight at/near Kallu Mantapa
Sun, June 21 : Kallu Mantapa to KP peak(5 KM) + Get down from Somavarapet Side(7 KM)
Take any bus and reach Bangalore.

As per plan we Booked seats in Kukke Shree Travels(Volvo) and reached Kukke by 8 AM. There were already hints of showers.
We freshed up, had breakfast and started our journey towards Bhattara Mane @ around 9.30 AM.
We overlooked the advise given by my roommates friends to carry at-least 2 Liters of water per person and had to face the wrath of sun. We had almost covered 3.5 or 4 KM when all of a sudden it rained heavily. Though it drenched us, it was a welcome rain for us as we had little water left with us.
One of our Nataraj was not feeling comfortable and because of that the pace was bit slow. Still we managed to reach Bhattara Mane by 12.30 PM. First thing we did there was to get rid of the leaches, which grew fat sucking our blood.

We had a shock when we heard that no overnight camping is allowed during mansoons, because of heavy winds. The second shocker was when we learned that Somavarapet side route is closed as it's too dangerous during wet conditions.(That increaded the trek by 7KM if we were to continue with our plan).

We had lunch at Bhattara mane and left to get permission from forest department (with (over)confidence that we can convince Forest officer, we carried all our luggage). It was 2.15 PM and Mr. Jayaraj straight away rejected us permission!! We tried to convince but it fell on def ears. But he assured he will leave us even by 6Am the next morning.

So we were left with no option but to bring in a drastic change to our plan,
The updated plan looked like:
Sat, June 20 : Kukke to Bhattara Mane(6.5KM)
Stay overnight at Bhattara mane
Sun, June 21 : Trek to KP peak(7.5 KM) + Get down from Kukke Side(14 KM) - Total 21.5 KM

The updated plan meant we had to cover 21.5 KM on Sunday, then travel overnight to Bangalore in an unreserved bus and work on Monday!!

Reluctantly we came back to Bhattara mane, dumped our luggage and went out to pass the time. We had dinner and slept in Bhattara mane. 

That weekend there were around 8 teams(3 teams including mine stayed in Bhattara mane, while others had tents).
We met a guy Uttam(who has covered KP twice & his team was the only team, other than mine which managed to reach KP peak that weekend). He advised us not to start trek early morning because the wind speed would be too high. Also we were informed by another team that the forest after Shesha Parvatha had too many leaches and that's the reason they were not planning ahead.
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On Sunday we got up bit late, freshened up and reached forest office at 8. I was done with the formalities & paying fees by 8.15 AM.
We started walking along the grassland. The visibility as informed by Uttam was very poor and the winds speed was too high(enough to throw us off-balance). We trekked for around 2 KM and had breakfast. Over the breakfast one of my friend(the one who was not feeling comfortable) asked me shall we return from Mantapa?
I just said, if that's what everyone want then I'm fine, but for me the plan is a complete failure and I'm gonna come back to KP soon.
That was enough to push everyone. We reached Kallu Mantapa in no time.

The next climb was the most challenging one. The winds showed no mercy & was challenging us like hell. In few places we had to hold another person to walk. There were places which were steep on one side and the wind was pushing us in exactly the same direction, we had no option but to duck down and wait for wind to decrease.
After walking 3 KM we reached Shesha Parvatha. Then we entered the forest, with the fear of leaches. But entering forest was a big relief from winds.
We walked along the water stream and for few 100 meters we had to climb in the rocky path of water stream. to reach the final rock.
There were many challenging & risky times when few of us felt quitting is the best option, but we continued. Finally we were on the top of KP.

Standing on top of KP was hell, the wind was literally tearing us.

We relaxed for some time in the water stream, had snacks and then came the thought that we have to climb down 14KM(half of that again in extreme winds). We started our journey back.

While climbing the wind was blowing from back(approx 30 degrees from back), but while climbing down it was approx 60 degrees on our face. I had to hold my roommate for at-least half a KM to save him from winds. Also the rain drops were hitting our face like bullets and we had to duck down for minutes in few places.

We climbed down pretty fast, and reached Bhattara Mane. Just picked up our luggage and started walking back to Kukke.

Once we reached Kukke we booked a room, had a shower, put on warm clothes (for whole day we were completely drenched in rains) had dinner and left to Bangalore. We were lucky enough to get seats in a Karnataka sarige bus. 

This was one hell of an experience I would never forget in life, for me a risk worth taking. I will not propose this to many, but if you like some adrenaline rush, then you must try KP trek in monsoons..

PS : We could-not capture pics in all places since we did not have a waterproof camera. And the fog blurred the lens bit too often.

Below are a few pics I would like to share.....