Har Ki Dun trek again after 9 years
Har Ki Dun trek was the trek that got me outdoors and that was 9 years ago. Since then I have ensured that atleast once an year I am in the Indian Himalayas; Uttarakhand, Himachal and a lone trip to Kashmir every year and on a hike.
Over the years, many of my friends have got introduced to these treks and some of them have become addicts like me and my family. For long some of them have been asking me to organize an easy trek.
So this year I chose to revisit Har Ki Dun in summer than post monsoon. I must confess that Har Ki Dun is an "easy" trek for the only reason that the trail is wide, well laid and gentle for most parts. The challenging part of this trek is the length; you walk significantly longer than in many trails. However, what is a trek without a challenge thrown in?
And so it was on a Friday in May, a group of us left for Delhi. Our group consisted of 18 of us, 6 of us rotarians, their families and friends. My wife, Lakshmi, was the first one to sign up, her 3rd trek. Nalini signed up immediately for her 3rd trek along with her husband, Aravindan, younger son Sibhi (13) and one of his classmates, Aron. Ramaswamy signed up with his two sons, Anuj (16) and Amogh (22). His friend Arul (38) also joined us. Mahesh inquired if he could bring his family and so he joined with Susanne, his sister-in-law Regina and her son Sam (13). But the surprise was his daughter, Tusita (6). Ramesh Kannan joined along with his friend Raghu and finally, Dr Vasudha joined us.
10 of us reached New Delhi airport by 8PM and proceeded by the Airport Express Metro for a quick journey to CP for dinner at Pind Balluchi, where 3 more of our friends joined us. After a sumptuous dinner, 13 of us proceeded to New Delhi station to catch the night AC express to Dehradun, Mahesh and his family joining us in the train.
Day 1: Dehradun to Sankri
We reached Dehradun station at 5:45 AM and went to the retiring room to freshen up; we were scheduled to take the road trip immediately. One look at the retiring room showed us that trekking is becoming very popular in our country; there were trekkers of all types heading all over the mountains. The retiring room was decently neat and clean and we got ready in an hour. Chain Singh Rawat was waiting with the vans which we boarded.
We left Dehradun for Sankri, via Musooriee, after a quick breakfast of Aloo Parathas on the highway
We initially crossed Musoorie town and Kempty falls, a parody for a falls really; the place is built up with ugly looking restaurants and you will miss an absolutely miserable looking dirty falls if you blink. The route is all along the banks of Yamuna for almost 150 kms. We stopped enroute to wet our feet in the Yamuna.
We reached Purola for lunch, a much built up town that continues to be dirty. Obviously Swach Barath abhiyan hasn't reached this town. Up from this town is a beautiful drive through pine forest, a trip that I know have made 4 times now. The roads are now pretty good and we made good speed. By this time only those with BSNL phones had any connection. From Mori, the drive is along the Tons river until you reach the Govind Pashu Vihar entrance in Naitwar. From Naitwar it is a poorly managed road to Sankri.
Sankri looks very surprisingly prosperous; well built up homes, plenty terraced farms, apple orchards and all. Chain Singh has built up Swargarohini Palace hotel into something that can put city hotel to shame. They have also built a good shop that stores decently prized good trek gear. Bhagat Singh was telling horror stories of trekkers who turn up absolutely ridiculously kitted for treks, which was their inspiration. Sankri main market is also now home to every trek company in the country and the mountains are today filled with more trekkers than it can handle. Time government steps in and puts in some control/permit system before these fragile ecosystem collapses.
After a good hearty dinner, we retired to bed, preparing for an exciting day ahead.
Day 2: Sankri to Taluka and Cheludgad 1970m to 2450m (13km trek)
We started from Sankri in two vehicles by 7:30am towards Taluka, the starting point of the trek. This road trip is not for the faint hearted, the road has waterfalls cutting across, landslides are common place and when there is a vehicle from the opposite side, a wheel can sometime be seen hanging outside the road in the air. An hours drive and we reached the starting point at Taluka.
The initial 3 km is an easy walk along the right side of the river in a forested path. There are plenty of dhabas, almost 1 every 2 kms. The team soon spread out and younger ones went well ahead. Then the selfie freaks had their hearts fill of selfies along beautiful locations; they weren't aware that even more beautiful locations lie ahead.
3 kms into the walk we reached the first major breakpoint for tea, which is at a beautiful confluence of 2 streams, the Har Ki Dun river and one of the larger stream. We discovered that half our team had moved ahead. Hence I left the stragglers with the main guide Narender and ran behind the advance group. I caught up with them an hour ahead, while walking through some beautiful terrain.
Once we got the advance team together, we continued ahead for another 3km till we reached a dhabha beside another beautiful waterfall. We soon realized that some of our team was quite slow and Ramesh was beginning to struggle. After an hour almost 10 of the guys moved ahead and I asked them to stop at Gangad village. Meanwhile, all the rest apart from Ramesh reached and we were informed that one of the guides was accompanying him. We were beginning to get concerned of his ability to complete the trek.
We reached Gangad by 2:30pm and it was already beginning to drizzle. More importantly, our camp hadn't caught up with us till then which was highly unusual; they should have crossed us by 1pm. And then we realized that the advanced group had moved ahead! They didn't know the campsite, had no lunch with them and no camp to halt!
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| Gangad Village |
I sent the guide away to serve food to the guys gone in front, while we made arrangements with the dhabawala for accomodating Ramesh Kannan that night. The rest of us went ahead and reached the camp late in the afternoon.
After coffee/tea followed by soup and subsequently a hearty dinner, we retired to our tents and continued our banter from the cozy but cramped tents for quite sometime prior to sleeping.
Day 3: Cheludgad (2450m) to Kalkathyar Dhar (3000m) 8Km
Many would proceed from Cheludgad directly to Har Ki Dun campsite. However, this is a long walk and more importantly a height gain of more than 1000m in a day. Considering that all of us are from Chennai, I took the safe option of breaking it down to 2 days.
Our camp at Cheludgad was by the side of the trail towards Osla in a flat piece of land, but with great view of Har Ki Dun. We woke up to such an enchanting view. Throughout the trip, we kept missing the sunrise and sunset photo shots despite great locations due to 2 reasons; being summertime, sunrise was pretty early around five and evenings were always rained out. But then we do get a good morning look in the sky
After a very hearty breakfast we started off towards the days camp. 5 minutes into the walk Vasudha realized she was stretched. While the fighter in her wanted to try walking, the doctor in her told her to go back, lest the rest of the group suffer. Hats off for a bold decision. So she went back to Sankri, to be joined by Ramesh. Unfortunately, this meant one of the guides had to go back and now I officially was a guide.
The day's trek starts a fairly easy 3km level walk to the village of Osla, after which you cross the river on a very well built suspension bridge and provides an excellent photo opportunity.
Once you cross the bridge the entire journey is on the left side of the river. The trail you see behind the bridge will lead to Ruinsara Lake and across the Bali pass to Yamunotri, a tough trek through the snow line. The route to HKD entails a tough climb of almost 150m immediately.
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| Climb up the hill to the bridge you can see on the right |
The trek up is not too tough and the entire group aced it quite casually. The views from the trail probably made up for the difficulty.
Once you climb up this stretch, the next 6 kms for the trail is along an easy path with a few small climbs. There are a number of streams/waterfalls that you cross, as well as many terraced fields. Post monsoon, you will catch up all sorts of crops on these slopes.
Some of our mates chose to cross this river removing shoes; it was cold and feet almost froze. Three brave soles, Amogh, Arul and Aravindan, chose to take a dip in this stream. Arul initiated the Shamboo cult from here. In a trice, he was fully under the water, leaving the locals completely shocked. When he got out, stretched his very fit frame and cried Shamboo, many a local started touching his feet!
This was to be our camp site for the day, Kalkatiya dhar, providing us with clear view of the Kalanag and Banderpoonch ranges. You find the campsite empty as once again, we beat our crew to campsite. As the mule owner was injured, the new guys where unable to control the mules and were way behind. We meanwhile had maggi, omlette and tea at the Dhabha here until our camp arrived and prepared a late lunch.
Day 4: Kalkatiya Dhar 3000m to Har Ki Dun 3500m - 8km trek
The sunrise here is pretty early and it gets bright by 5AM in these parts during summer and all were up at 5:30 for tea. We had some of the most beautiful views that you could ask for.
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| The left most is Kalanag (black peak) and the others are Banderpoonch 1, 2 & 3. All these form the watershed of the Yamuna and Ganga rivers |
As usual we had a hearty breakfast and proceeded on the first challenge, a 200m ascend that would move us to the HKD valley.
And like usual, the team aced it casually, with many stops for memorable pictures.
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| Bahubali, Aravindan, removing his thermal layers after 30min hike |
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| You can see the valley along which we travelled |
We reached now into the HKD valley and had some of the most beautiful view of the valley
The trail was a constant climb today and we had a further 300m to climb, made pleasant by beautiful trail, waterfalls and meadows.
After a good 5 hours of walk covering 8kms and climbing 550m, we reached our beautiful campsite at Har Ki Dun, overlooking the Swargarohini peak.
We were to be camped here for 2 nights. As usual, we had rain starting late afternoon till about 7pm. It was followed by a very cold night, less than 5degC. Today we brought out all the woollens and had a deep sleep.
Day 5: Camp at HKD and trip to Maninda lake (6kms 200m climb)
We got up to a beautiful morning with blue sky and cold weather. The effect of the cold weather was beginning to show on the health of some. Aravindan and Lakshmi had started coughing and I was down with loose motion. Arul though was in his Shamboo state.
I had to threaten him to stop taking bath in the freezing river!
The team left without me to the Maninda lake today and soon had Regina drop out with a pulled leg muscle. The walk is a climb up to the ridge and a further climb towards the left. The path beyond Maninda leads to Chitkul in Himachal (2days of a tough hike through snow bound pass). The route offers plenty of sights, flowering rhododendrons, snow and snow bridges and a beautiful lake. The team had plenty of snow fights but had to come back quickly as it started drizzling.
Once back in camp by 1pm, it was drizzling for the good part of day. We were all camped inside the dining tent, which was much warmer and roomier than our tents.
Day 6: HKD to Cheludgad 16kms!
Today was to be the start of the descent. Before we started, we took final pictures of the valley.
The first 10 kms today were a breeze and we covered it under less than 4:30hrs. We had our lunch and then the first scramble down a steep slope took toll; the regular path was affected due to rain and we had to clamber down a rubble. We came close to Osla and had to clamber down another 150m in a rain. The slippery path taking further toll on us. The last 3 kms of the day was one long dreary walk in a steady drizzle.
Unfortunately, our camp was in a miserable shape. The inexperience of our guides began showing; the tents were pitched without levelling and the rain gutter. As a result, the tent floor was cold and some of the tents were wet inside. Some of the kids were down with fever after completing the 16kms. Some of the team chose to sleep again in the kitchen tent and others had uncomfortable night in the tents.
Day 7: Cheludgad to Taluka (13kms) and drive to Sankri
A somewhat sick team got up to a clear cold day. Aravindan and Lakshmi had bad cough, Regina was struggling with her leg; she somehow managed the previous day. Some of the boys were feverish and paracetamol and I was having a bad tummy and loose motion (had to start antibiotics). Most were lacking sleep.
After a brief breakfast, we started our long walk. Lakshmi was struggling with cough and Aravindan damaged his knee badly. Even Arul was struggling due to lack of sleep.
With great effort, the team pulled themselves into Taluka, the last of Aravindan, Lakshmi and I getting there in 6 hrs, while the fastest team got a good 2 hours ahead.
What followed was a sumptuous lunch, a reunion with Vasudha and Ramesh, both of whom decided to stay back and explore Sankri and surroundings. Ramesh taught every day at the local school, Vasudha provided free medical consultation in the village, all the while exploring the local area, including homestay at Chain Singh's house.
Most of us were exhausted, had a consequent fever, good sleep and most importantly a nice hot water bath.
Day 8: Drive back to Dehradun
All of us woke up partly recovered, had medical condition assessed by Vasudha and prescribed suitable medication. We also had one of the most awesome breakfast; Vasudha had collected fern shoots and it was cooked into a delicious vegetable.
We chose to leave by 9:30 and bad news happened pretty early. Just out of Sankri, the accelerator cable in our van got cut. With no solution, the driver managed to drive in first gear till Naitwar. After a 40 min repair exercise, we had no solution and the vehicle had to proceed in 1st gear at 10km/hr speed till Mori, a distance of 30km covered in 90 minutes. The other vehicle was waiting at Mori. We had even more bad news; the garage at Mori couldn't set the vehicle right and we ended up with a jugad solution, engine set to rev high for the climb. We somehow reached the highest point on the Mori - Purola road and for the last 35km of down trip, we travelled in neutral! We reached Purola after 4.5 hours. As we waited to get a replacement vehicle, we had our lunch.
Tip for Tamils, there is a nice shop here that sells curd, the last point on the route to get curd.
We finally left Purola at 3pm and reached Dehradun by 9:30pm. We found a South Indian restaurant serving decent dosa's sambar and rice and ended our craving for Chennai food. We caught the night train to reach Delhi early in the morning, which had some kind weather for us.
Signing off till the next trek
PS 1: Our friend Chain Singh and Bhagat Singh had a disaster that stuck their families a few days after our return. Chain's mother and Bhagat's wife (Chachi to Chain Singh) were crossing the road to visit Chain's father (Bhagat's brother), who was admitted there for a heart ailment. A kid without driving license hit them in a bike and killed them on the spot. Our deepest condolences to Chain Singh and Bhagat's families.
PS 2: I have now chosen to turn a passion into profession; I intend to start a outdoor travel venture and plan to take people on treks. The first of these is to be Valley of flowers in Uttarakhand starting Aug 19 and followed by an easy trek to Dayara bhughyal + a trip to Gangotri in September. All these trips will be supported by Chain Singh and his professional crew. Limited seats on offer, please reach out to me if you are interested
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