Rupin Pass Trek
This is an extremely delayed post. I have been wanting to complete this, but never found the time (well that's an easy excuse). Recently, we read in the press that Rupin pass was voted the second best trek in India and then I decided that I must complete this blog.
We went on this trek during the first week of October 2014. Our motley crew for the trek numbered 8.
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| Vasu - the eternal youngster |
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| Nalini - Akka for all of us (not by age) |
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| Defacto Chief on the trek |
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| Papa Rao (NPR for short) |
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| Nirmal - the lucky one |
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| Anirban - Only non tamil speaker |
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| Sunita - (Mata Sunitanandamayi) |
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| Sats - Baby on the team |
Considering that only 3 had past trekking experience, I had to draw up a detailed list of things to buy and exercise routine to follow; Rupin pass is a tough trek for most.
Luckily for the group, they all took my instructions to heart. Some of them raided Decathlon stores and were well kitted for the trek.
We started on Vijayadashami day, 6 of us from Chennai and Vasu from Delhi. Anirban joined us at Delhi. After dinner, we assembled at the NDLS station for the train trip to Dehradun.
October 4: Mussoorie - Acclimatization
Early morning ride into Mussoorie started our acclimatization process. We dwellers from Chennai weren't used to temperatures below 20 deg C. The Himalayan club offered us wonderful views and very decent accommodation.
We wandered down the mall and found some nice joints for delicious breakfast, before coming back to the hotel and checking in to respective rooms. Then started the banter and getting to know each other. After a delicious lunch, we started a warm up climb to Lal Tibba at a distance of 3 km. Roads in the mountains are nothing like in the cities and during the entire trip we marveled at the way people managed to travel these roads in an accommodating fashion. If we had similar roads in the city, we would have gridlocks for certain.
And before day 1 was over, Sats, Vasu and Anirban identified yummy jalebi's for us to feast.
Day 0: Mussoorie to Dhaula base camp (by road)
The day started early and we started our journey towards Dhaula near Netwar. We had 2 Mahindra Bolero's the work horse of the mountains for a very comfortable journey. The journey takes you past Kempty falls and along the beautiful Yamuna river. There are multiple places where you can reach the water and we did enjoy the cold river.
We stopped for lunch at Purola, and started on the beautiful drive through Pine forest towards Dhaula via Mori. Once you approach Netwar, the road is as dirt track and tough on your back.
We were welcomed on the banks of Rupin, by Chain Singh of Har Ki Dun Protection and Mountaineering agency.
I have been trekking with Chain Singh for 6 years now. His organization has grown professionally, with a focus on local community development. The equipment he provides (tents, sleeping bags etc) are all of high quality and at an affordable cost. Do consider him as an option, if you are trekking in western Uttarakand.
After a lovely meal, we retired for the day under fairly warm conditions. For the first time, the guides had a warning for us though. They asked us to keep shoes, walking sticks and bags inside the tent; some local rogue elements had taken to thievery and previous groups had lost their shoes. It is indeed sad; in the past, I have had expensive things left behind found and handed over to us after a few months.
Day 1: Dhaul to Gosangu
We started our first day of trek at 7 AM. After a wash and hearty breakfast, we started our first day of trek towards the Rupin Pass. After quickly crossing over the Rupin, the route goes along the left bank of the river entire day.
A liberal dose of sunscreen is required as you are going to be walking in the sun most of the day. The day is pretty long for first day as you walk 13 kms and gain about 400m. The initial climb takes you to the village of Sewa (2100m). You are greeted by a beautiful temple, with exquisite carvings
At this point, you are really tested, because you think you have reached the destination for the day and discover that you have to walk a further 1.5 hrs through forest, with no sight of the camp. To add to our concerns, the porters where nowhere in sight. Past experience told me that the porters overtake you in about 4 hrs, we discovered that ours porters were new to the business. Chain Singh insisted on hiring from the local village and we had people who were new to the job! Over the entire trek, we found that the porters were always behind us.
We reached our beautiful campsite by the river and waited for almost 1.5 hrs for our luggage and tents to arrive.
All of us took a bath in the cold river, a new experience for most as the river was really cold. A bit of drizzle and a nice dinner later, we all went to a sound sleep.
Day 2: Gosangu to Jhaka
We woke to a nice beautiful morning and after our morning routines, started the crossing into Himachal. You are immediately stuck with the surprise, power lines and electricity is available just across an imaginary line; years of neglect of Uttarakand is obvious. Today you have to make 3 climbs. The first 250m takes you across to Himachal and you are greeted by a motor-able road that runs from Rohru to Jiskon. The next 6 km is an almost level walk along this road with Rupin roaring below till you hit the next climb to Jiskun village.
From almost the river bank, you then climb 300m to Jiskun village. This section is the first tough section of the trek and the first timers were tested by some landslide sections. Jiskun village has electricity and mobile connectivity; we had a nice cup of tea and called our families, the last we were going to manage till we reached Sangla. Compared to the Uttarakand villages, Jiskun is fairly well off, electricity, satellite TV, mobile connections etc gives this place a connection to the cities. They also have apple orchards, which had already been harvested.
Jiskun to Jhaka is a beautiful stretch again through Pine forest. We are well above 2300m now and can feel the temperature drop. However, the walk really is scenic and you forget the difficulty in no time.
Well past noon we start the 3rd and last climb of the day, another 350m to the Jhaka village. The first stretch of this climb is quite steep, but then its climb through out! The views though are awesome
The stay for the night is a homestay in Jhaka village. It's a house fully built of wood overlooking the valley (the only time we are not at the banks of Rupin during the trek). It had electricity, running water and television. The owner of the place was kind enough to provide us hot water for bathing. We also enjoyed our first tree plucked apple in Jhaka.
We where looking forward to viewing the lunar eclipse in a non polluted sky, but unfortunately, it was cloudy and raining and hence no views were feasible. We had trekked 13 kms and had gained 700m in altitude today. The night most got a good introduction to the idea of sound sleep; such was the snoring of half of our team!
Day 3: Jhaka to Saruwas Thach
Another fine morning and we looked forward to a shorter trek today. It was also the start of trek on trails and boulders.
At this point, we had reached 3000m and we could feel the chill in the air. We also faced a traffic jam here; some 1000+ sheep making the journey towards lower altitude
We also had the worst camp at Saruwas thach today. It was to be our first really cold night at nearly 3200 m. We also had our first depressing moment into the trek.
As we were reaching our camp, we crossed a group of IAS officers from the academy tracing the route from Sangla to Dhaula. As we sat in our camp (inside the tents as it was drizzling), we came out to commotion and horrified to see a guy on a makeshift stretcher. He had suffered AMS and couldn't walk. The group had borrowed porters from the Indiahikes team which was a day ahead of us to carry the guy so far. The group still had 7 km to cover to Jhaka and it was already pretty late. Most of the team was scared and I had to assure them that we were better prepared as we were gaining height slowly.
Day 4: Saruwas to Upper Waterfall
Our guide told us in the morning that instead of breaking camp at Dhanderas, we would proceed straight to upper waterfalls. I believe it was the first stupid decision we made on the trek. Eventhough this was only a 8 k walk, the height gain was pretty steep; 900m.However, the guide managed to convince all that we should do it and so we set out on the day. It was now cold and we had our jackets on.
From here starts the most beautiful of the treks. Words can't describe an amazing hike in a deep valley with waterfalls in the distance.
This is also the day when you come across snow bridges. We were told that from late October till July, the valley we were walking in would be snow bound.
The sight of the water falls is awe inspiring. It is like no other waterfalls that I had seen
The climb up this waterfall was one of the most memorable part of this trek. We were lucky that there was no snow. However, we had to scramble up the rocks. The climb was almost 600m and virtually vertical. The waterfalls had 3 stages and each stage providing a bit of breather.
The entire stretch today was above the tree line and the landscape was quite stark, with just traces of grass. That winter was setting was quite clear with the many frozen puddles on the way. Our tent was on top of the water falls at an altitude of 4100m, providing some of the most amazing views.
This was the coldest night; the temperatures were well below freezing and unfortunately, there was no wood for a bonfire. This night was extraordinarily tough to sleep. On the one side was severe cold, but a more difficult factor was the altitude and the lack of oxygen. We all struggled to sleep the night.
Day 4: Across the Pass to Ronti Gad
We woke up to cold morning. There was frost all over, luckily, no snow and temperatures were still sub zero. Our trek shoes must have had moisture from sweat, we found them frozen. None of us could actually feel our toes or fingers.
The other thing the altitude and cold did to us was completely killed appetite; both the previous night and now during the morning, we could not eat much.
We set out very early today, wanting to cross the pass before it got windy at the pass (it apparently does as the day gets warmer). Today, was going to be a killer. We were going to be climbing from 4100m to 4650m to cross the pass and get down to 3900m all in a matter of 7kms!
First, I must say something about altitude. An average city dweller, if he is transported straight to an altitude above 4000m, will not be able to walk for 15mins; the air is so thin. Many would simply collapse fatally (as it so often happens to those on Amarnath yatra). It is customary in treks to acclimatize before you go high altitude. The general rule is that height gain should be restricted to 500 to 600m a day and follow practice of climb high and sleep low. A hell a lot of people reach high altitudes pretty fast (as the IAS trainees had done) with very dangerous consequences.
Our own trek this morning was extraordinarily tough. We were all panting within half an hour. We started with a steep 150m climb, and then had another gradual climb for 200m to the base of the pass. By now we were just doing boulder hopping.
By this point, I was breathless and struggling after every 15 steps, to much concern of the team. I was really doing badly and required the guide to hold my hands. The team kept encouraging me and that kept me going; what a great group of friends I had found. Ofcourse, all of this didn't stop me capturing amazing landscapes. All the team members were also struggling, but none was as bad as I was doing.
The climb up the pass is dizzying; 200m absolutely vertical through a gully, with towering concrete mountains either side. Climbing up the gully is treacherous; its fully lined by loose stones and boulders (scree).
And suddenly, out of nowhere, I had my mojo back. I was fully invigorated and found fresh source of energy and started leading climb with Anirban. We were hopping from boulder to boulder, sometimes on all four, but sure footed and steady.
I remember shouting with joy on crossing the pass. The experience is indescribable and out of the world; every moment of which will live in my memory for ever.
My team was fabulous, special mention goes to Satish and Nalini. Sats was on project travel and struggled to workout prior to the trek. Nalini was pure self confidence and determination; looking at her kept others going.
The views across the Sangla side were really something worth the trek.
Unfortunately, we weren't don for the day yet. The toughest part was now trekking down 700m to our campsite. The toughest element in trek is the climb down and this became even more difficult due to to factors, our tiredness and light hail.
The entire day was spent trekking in temperatures starting sub zero and never going beyond 5-6 deg. But it was also the most amazing day of the trek.
We were still camped above the tree line, with snow covered mountains and wild yaks for company. The cook provided us hot maggi on reaching the camp, the most delicious stuff we had tasted for the day. The altitude and cold killed our appetite completely and most of us couldn't eat more than one or two rotis and a bit of rice.
The night was slightly better than the previous one, we had experience thinner air and breathlessness was lesser, but the cold was pretty severe and it was another sub zero freezing night.
Day 6: Rontigad to Sangla
Over dinner, the team voted to go full distance to Sangla today, rather than camp at Sangla Kanda and subsequently the next day to Sangla. This meant the day was going to be tortuous 13K walk downhill, a non stop descent of 1500m. We woke up to discover that there was ice in our water bottles that was the cold!
After another early breakfast, we started our journey back to "civilization", to mobiles, tv and all the rest of modernity. The route in the initial part was gentle downward slope with amazing views all the way. After the tough previous day, we were pretty relaxed and enjoying our walk.
Nearing Sangla Kanda, we were glad to have mobile connectivity. A quick call to our friend M Srini, ensured that we had hotel reservations at Sangla. Sangla Kanda to Sangla journey actually turned out to be the nightmare for most. We were now passing through village homes and orchards. But this was also 7K and 1000m descent that did no good to the knees.
We were now in apple country, Sangla and Kinnaur probably have the most delicious Apples the country produces and we were crossing orchard after orchard. One of the orchard allowed us to pluck apples (1 for each of us) and Nirmal did the honors of getting us the most delicious red apples.
After a descent that looked an eternity, we finally crawled into Sangla. We were booked into a hotel that was built in the middle of an apple orchard.
We checked in and had hot shower and ate atleast 3 meals in one go at 5'O clock in the evening. We had to reschedule flights as we were back earlier than anticipated and had also factored in a reserve day.
Day 7 & 8:
The next two days were the journey back home. The drive from Sangla to Chandigarh was a very long tiring one (15hrs) and then the flight back home from Chandigarh to Chennai via Mumbai.
This was unquestionably the most beautiful and adventurous trek I have been on. The trek was made even more memorable by the amazing group I went with. Thanks Sunita, Nalini, Anirban, Vasu, Papa Rao, Nirmal and Sats.
Things to consider on similar treks
- Plan the trek well, certainly include acclimatization at the start
- Ensure that the team is kitted well; proper trek shows and light clothing goes a long way
- Ensure you are travelling with friends who think like you, they can make the trek a pleasure
- Pick altitudes you are comfortable with. On hindsight this was a tough trek for the starters in our group
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