Background
This dream started in Sept 2010. I am pasting here the excerpt for the mail written by Jyoti Prakash (JP), the leader of the Auden’s Col/Mayali Pass/Rudugaira trek in Aug-Sep 2010 (additional photos here), to all of us who had trekked with him in the Auden’s col trek or in some other treks previously.
Arwa Col:
This Col was first discovered in 1939 by JC Auden’s but he didn’t cross it. It was mentioned again 1990 by Harish Kapadia during his exploration of Jadganga valley. Even Harish Kapadia didn’t cross it. It is an unclimbed Col at 20300 feet, 8 kms to the left of Kalindi Pass. Harish Kapadia reached Saraswati Col in 1990 but again didn’t cross it.
The dream is to cross Arwa Col on which no human has ever set his feet till now. This might be a full fledged expedition starting from Bhaironghati and will take us to Badrinath via Nelang – Naga – Arwa Col. Biggest obstacles are getting permits from Army and local administration. Anyone interested in joining? Or anyone who can help getting necessary permits using his/her contacts?
Without bothering you about all the intermittent details I will skip forward to May 2011, when JP informed us that in the background he and Harsh (another team member) had been working to get the permits for the expedition to Arwa Col.
The names of the participants kept changing a bit. Harsh and Subbu (mentioned in the permit above) had to drop off because of personal commitments. The final team comprised
- Debabrata Mukherjee (also know as Debuda), a well acclaimed guide/entrepreneur, leader of IMF sponsored successful expedition to Gangotri-III, the one who opened the route to Panpttia col in 2008, joined the group as a member, friend and consultant. Debu-da has been a mountain-man for close to 25 years (or probably more). He is a registered tour guide and is well versed in Japanese and Swedish (in blue t-shirt sans cap, 2nd from right in the photo below)
- Subhamoy Ghosh, another seasoned trekker/mountaineer, who had crossed the Longstaff col, is also an excellent photographer. Subhamoy, a banker by profession, has been mountain-lover/trekker at heart for a long time. (in bright orange t-shirt sa in the centre of the photo below)
- Viswanath is another avid trekker, good photographer and is passionate about the mountains. He runs his own adventure company( see http://www.summiters.net ). (seated in fluorescent green t-shirt in the extreme right of the photo below)
- Moiz, a constant trekking companion of JP – the only lad from bombay works in the IT field. (2nd from left in the photo below)
- Pavan, the youngest member of the group, is an avid trekker and photographer. He was a member of the Auden’s col trek last year and has also been to Siachen/Roopkund. He works with a prominent company in the IT business. (Donninga floppy sun hat is 3rd from right in the photo below)
- JP, who founded the yahoo group himalayan_trekkers (with over a 1000 members) has been a trekker for over 15 years. He too works with a prominent company in the IT business. (with dark shades, baseball cap, waist pouch in the picture below)
- And yours truly, a newbie to the trekking community compared to the vast experience of the other team members. (extreme left in the picture below)
As you can see the group comprised people from different backgrounds but with one common interest of exploring the mighty Himalayas.
25th Aug – 30th Aug : Delhi to Badrinath (~3100 M)If you have just seen the heading of this section and are wondering why it takes nearly a week to reach from Delhi to Badrinath (and don’t have patience to read on) the short answer is “Effects of Vagaries of weather – landslides & more landslides” combined with “Babudom for getting permits to trek. 5 of us converged in Delhi on 25th Aug.
- Pavan/JP flew in from bangalore and Moiz from bombay, at 8:00 p.m in the evening.
- Vishwa had come on 25th Aug morning and was staying with his friend.
- I had flown in from Leh around noon.
I was out of e-mail/phone contact in the last month because of my trek/travel. After landing in Delhi I was told that I had to get snowboots for the trek. Vishwa had hired 5 snowshoes from IMF (Indian Mountaineering Federation) this morning for the rest of the team. I contacted him and he gave me the contact of the storekeeper @ IMF and also co-ordinated with him to get me a snowshoe. I landed at IMF @ 10 mins past 5 p.m. The storekeeper, who usually leaves at 5 p.m, had kept the store open for me at Vishwa’s request. I got a size 11 Scarpa Snowshoe. It weighed about 3 kg ( to add to my 25 kg backpack). As I carried my snowshoes to the New Delhi station everyone stared @ me with the “what is this guy carrying ” look. Had dinner @ ComeSum where all of us met and then proceeded to board the midnight train to reach Haridwar at 5 a.m in the morning on 26th August.
26th Aug : Haridwar to Rudraprayag
From Haridwar we took an Auto Rickshaw to Rishikesh. Now this seems like a simple enough affair – but each one of us had ~20 KG backpack. Additionally there were a couple of bags of ration and 2 heavy bags containing tents/snowshoes & other climbing gear (like harness / gaiters / carabiners etc..). So, when all of this had to be loaded along with 5 people it becomes an exercise in itself. Halfway to Rishikesh the Auto Rickshaw driver stopped his auto and said that the load had to be transferred to another auto which took us to Rishikesh – though there was no extra charge for this. It seems that these auto-drivers have jurisductional understanding -:). Reached Rishikesh @ about 7 a.m and negotiated a price for a full jeep to Joshimath. We were hoping that we would reach Joshimath by evening/night. An hour after we started we encountered the first of the many landslides. We were stuck for an hour before traffic cleared up.
Crossing Sirobagad Landslide Zone : Most dangerous Rockfalls/Landslide I have seen – Lucky to be alive
It was smooth sailing till we were about 20km after Srinagar around 1 p.m. Here there was such heavy rockfall and the rockfall was so continuous that it was impossible for even the bulldozers from GREF to operate to clean up the road. I have seen numerous rockfalls/landslides but this was the scariest of them all. Besides the size of the boulders, the continuity with which the rockfall & landslide was happening made it seem as if up the hill there was a source of a perennial waterfall, except in this case this was a waterfall of rocks, boulders and lanslides. Since we had hired the jeep upto Joshimath we waited, in the hope that the rockfall would eventually stop. Like hundreds of others we waited and watched the rockfall. It was not even raining. The local theory behind the rockfall was that these were limestone rocks and in the heat (post the rains) they expanded & burst its way down. Another theory was that since the BRO/GREF were doing blasts in the mountains for road widening the rocks were getting loose and when man toys with nature this is the result. There were as many opinions as there were people -:). It was 4 p.m and the bulldozers parked on either side of the ~70M landslide/rockfall area were still mere spectators. If there was any person who was happy because of the landslide/rockfall it was the 2 ice-cream vendors, who sold off their complete wares to all the waiting & thirsty travellers. By 5 pm a number of the travellers were becoming desperate. Some were taking risks and crossing the 70M boulder stretch despite the rockfall. There were jeeps/buses on either side of the landslide area which were beginning to turn so that they could go back to the nearest town (srinagar/rudrapraya..), ferrying the passengers who braved the landslide/rockfall and crossed it. This was a sure sign that the prospects were not good. The GREF bulldozers were also parked aside by 6 p.m as it was beginning to get dark. We were left with some choices to make :-
- Return to Srinagar in the jeep and hope that next day the road would be cleared. However, the way the rocks were continuously falling there were no guarantees that the road would be cleared the next day and even if it did we did not expect it to be early the next day.
- Cross the landslide area with our backpacks and some of us would have to make additional trips to ferry the additional loads .
We had to make a quick decision. My vote was for the former. However, the majority felt that we should risk and cross the landslide. JP, went across first with his backpack and tried to arrange a jeep on the other side. Pavan and Moiz went next with their backpacks. I followed. I think Pavan returned for an additional load ferrying. The light was fading quickly. By the time I returned for a final load it was dark. Both Viswa and I had to carry the final loads and it was really heavy loads and the sacks carrying these loads had no grips (unlike a rucksack which you can carry on your back). This meant that I had to carry the load on my head or on my shoulder. If 2 of us carried the sack the progress would have been inordinately slow and exposed us to more rockfall. We could now no longer see the rockfall -as it was dark – we could only hear it and there were flashes of light we could see when the falling rocks would rub against each other or on the mountainside. This crossing seemed almost suicidal. There have been many deaths/serious injuries because of rockfall. Just earlier in the day we had seen an old lady who tried to cross injure her leg. Viswa and I contemplated if we should head back to Srinagar and finally decided that we would risk it. Luckily there was GREF truck who switched on the headlights which enabled us to see a bit. I hoisted the load on my shoulders and scrambled across the boulders and so did Viswa (with 3 loads). A stone just passed by my foot. A feet closer and I would have been injured (if not dead). Somehow, we managed to reach the other side alive.
We got a jeep to Rudraprayag and reached there by 9 p.m without any further incidents.
27th Aug : Rudraprayag to Joshimath
27 Aug we set off on a bus from Rudraprayag at around 8:30 a.m and we would have travelled about an hour (I think we were before Gaucher) we encountered another landslide. There were in fact 4 landslides which the GREF were working on clearing. We crossed the first one on foot, again with 2-3 back and forths for load ferrying. It had taken us the best part of an hour to get this. Meanwhile JP had gone ahead on foot, to a spot after the 4 landslides to reserve a jeep. However, after the first landslide crossing we realized that crossing the other 3 landslides with the load ferrying was not going to be easy. Besides we heard that GREF was working on clearing the landslide blockades on the road. So, it was a matter of time, maybe a few hours, before the road was cleared. So, we decided to wait it out as it would have taken the same time and a lot more effort to cross the landslides on foot. After a couple of hours BRO cleared the road and we were able to get a ride in a jeep to Karnaprayag. From Karnaprayag we had to transfer to another jeep to Chamoli. This was the 6th vehicle we had boarded since we landed in Haridwar last morning. The stretch from Karnaprayag to Chamoli went off without any major incident. However, today there was a bandh in Uttarakhand to support the Anna Hazare anti-corruption movement. We reached Chamoli at around 2 p.m, in time for lunch. True to Indian Style, the bandh meant, the shutters on the hotel front was pulled down and we had to crawl underneath the small opening in the shutter and have lunch in the hotel behind the shutters -:). At Chamoli was the first time the team from bangalore met Debu-da and Tejender, the agent from Joshimath who was arranging the porters/guides for our trek. Debu-da & Tejender, who came from Joshimath to Chamoli, informed us that there were 3-4 lanslides enroute to Joshimath from Chamoli, which delayed their arrival to Chamoli. So, with silent prayers hoping that we do not have to ferry load across the landslides, we boarded the jeep to Joshimath post-lunch. Luckily there was just 1 lanslide, halfway between Chamoli and Joshimath. We had to wait for 2 hours here. There were long queues of vehicles snaking on either side of the landslide area. When the landslide was cleared a bit by the GREF bulldozers vehhicles from the other side (coming uphill) were allowed to cross first. After a few vehicles (say 20 or so) crossed the road had to be shut down again. Meanwhile our jeep driver had become jumpy and he wanted to turn his vehicle around and head back to Chamoli. A number of the drivers waiting on our side of the landslide began expressing their displeasure to the GREF personnel for not allowing vehicles from this side to pass through – and most of them were waiting since morning. This had its desired effect and when the road was opened again vehicles from our side of the landslide were allowed to pass through. Somehow our driver slithered his way through the snaking queue of vehicles on the other side of the landslide. We reached Joshimath, in the 8th vehicle since we landed in Haridwar, without any further incidents by late evening on 27th Aug.
28th Aug : Joshimath to Badrinath (3133 M)
On 28th Aug 5 of us decided to go ahead to Badrinath to acclimatize while Debu-da and Subho-da decided to stay behind in Joshimath to get the “Elusive Permit”
The views from Joshimath and enroute Joshimath to Badrinath would leave you spellbound. Here are a couple of samplers of the road snaking its way amidst the lush green hills.
No wonder we are in “DevBhoomi” – the Abode of the Gods. Though this was the route to Badrinath Dham (the seat of good Vishnu) the snaking route reminds me of the Snake coiled around Shiva’s neck. We reached Badrinath in the afternoon and some of us went to have a “snan” in “Tapt Kund” and visit the Badri Temple
For those who are not aware the “Tapt Kund” is a hot water pool fed by a sulphur spring. The clouds of steam emanating when the hot water from the Tapt Kund falls into the cold waters of the mighty Alaknanda adds to the ethereal beauty of this place. When seen from across the bridge over the river Alaknanda the Badri temple in this ethereal surrounds is a sight to behold. As I was standing outside the temple premises I was sucked in by the devoutness and the piety of the believers and worshippers, of which there was a steady stream. I did get my “Darshan” & blessings of “Badri Vishal” too.
29th Aug-30th Aug : Badrinath
On 29th Aug we decided to have an acclimatization trek by going to “Charan Paduka”, which is supposed to be the footprints of Lord Vishnu on the rock. It is a 3.5 KM trek and from here one can get panoramic views of the town of Badrinath. Most of us went well beyond the “Charan Paduka”. I was resting well beyond “Charan Paduka” when a young girl followed us all the way up thinking I was headed upto “Charan PAduka” , when actually she had passed it some ways back. After spending an hour or so at this elevation all of us headed back to Badrinath. Off and on over the next two days, while we waited for the “Elusive Permit”, we were blessed to witness the “Neelkanth peak” in all its grandeur.
24th Aug – 30th Aug : The Elusive Permit :
We had the permit from IMF. We needed to get the permit from Ministry of Defence to go beyond Ghastoli – as civilians are not allowed beyond Mana without a permit. Debu-Da was key in following up and arranging on the permits. Debu-da & Subho (Subhamoy Ghosh) had arrived on 24th Aug and had gone to Dehradun to meet the ITBP head there. Debu-da showed the ITBP head the route we were going to traverse and the ITBP head had been very helpful. The ITBP head even promised to help in getting the permits from DM (District Magistrate) at Joshimath. However, as luck would have it, when Debu-da arrived in Joshimath on 26th Aug the DM, the authority who had to sign the permit, went on vacation for a week starting on 26th Aug. Finally, it was figured that the authority who could sign the permit now was the DM at Chamoli. So Debu-da & Tejender had come to Chamoli (from Joshimath – a journey of over 4 hours due to landslides) with the requisite papers on 27th Aug to both meet us (folks from bangalore) as well as to meet the DM at Chamoli. Well the DM @ Chamoli did not know that DM @ Joshimath had gone on vacation -:). Added to that there was a bandh called on 27th Aug to support Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement. So, most of the government offices were also closed. Anyway, we were informed that there was a register that had to be brought from Joshimath so that an entry can be made in it. Only after that could the permit be given. As 28th Aug was a Sunday this meant the register could only be brought to Joshimath on Monday , 29th Aug. Also, as this was a government register this would not be handed over to civilians like us -:) . So, on 29th Aug by the time the requisite person in the government department at Joshimath could be contacted it was afternoon and too late for the register to be taken to Chamoli. On 30th Aug Tejender, agent @ Joshimath, took the register to Chamoli, got the requisite permits and by the time he returned to Joshimath it was late evening. On 31st Aug Debu-da, Subho-da, Tejeneder, and our crew of HAPs (High altitude porters) , porters and cook, armed with the requisite permits, met us at Badrinath in the afternoon.
29th Aug : Joshimath to Badrinath
