Har Ki Doon - Day 0

People often ask me "Why do you go for trek?", "You have to walk miles on such difficult terrain, carrying so much of weight on your shoulders, no fun rather a tiring and precarious task." Some of my friends also ask that, "What you do on trek? Just keep walking? No proper meal, no comfy place to sleep, neither you bathe for days nor change clothes." I just smile and never reply to their silly questions because I know trekking is something which is enjoyed by doing it. It cannot be lived from other's experience. Only a person who has adventurous soul, is a wanderer, adores nature, enjoy being free spirited and most important seek fun in exploring inner self can take pleasure in these activities.

A quote about travelling, I once read somewhere inspired me a lot; it says:

"The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page"

St. Augustine

This was the time to read new chapter called "Har ki Doon" and elongating my travelling list by adding one more location to it. The trip to Har ki Doon valley was planned by IIT Roorkee, Himalayan Explorers Club [HEC] in month of October but due to some personal reasons I didn't register for the trek. After few days in first week of december, when I was enjoying my leisure time at home I saw one of my friend's pictures on facebook. She had successfully completed her trek to "KedarKantha Summit" with a group of 10 people. The pictures instigated me so such that I decided I am not going to miss the upcoming trip to Har ki Doon. I contacted few of my friends associated with HEC and asked them to include my name in the list. But due to large number of registrations nothing was confirmed. Finally, my friends Rosy and Subhash managed to include my name in the list, but whether I will be going or not was to be decided after the conditioning camp only. Fortunately, many girls cancelled their registration and after a weeklong conditioning my name was eventually added in the list. Yayy!

Gigantic mountains, cool breeze, high altitude sky kissing alpine and deodar forests, uneven terrain, fresh and crystal clear river water, beautiful and natural waterfalls, white snow and a long trek with eclectic mix of natural beauty was all we were going to witness on the long trek to “Har Ki Dun”. We were a group of 7 girls, 5 boys and two professors, all excited to witness the natural beauty at the beautiful valley Har ki Dun. It is 3566 meters above the sea level. It was a 5 days and approximately 50-55 kilometers long trek. A day before, HEC distributed us rucksacks, sleeping bags, sleeping mats and some eatables like magie, daal, chawal, etc so that equal weight is distributed amongst us.

All set to travel

It was 24th of December 2015, we all gathered at HEC office at 4:30 in morning. All of us were fervent and energized for the journey to start ASAP. Soon we boarded a 14 seater Traveller from IIT Roorkee HEC Office and around 5:50 A.M we left the campus. As we were all familiar to each other, so just with a few introductory words from our professors we started our journey to Har ki Dun. It was a cold morning and as our journey started, in sometime all of us slipped into slumber. When I opened my eyes we had already crossed Haridwar and Dehdradun. Around 8:45 AM, we reached Queen of Hills "Mussoorie". Leaving the beautiful city and its morning life behind we reached the very famous "Kempty Falls". Kempty Falls are situated 13 kms from Mussoorie in Uttarakhand. It is approximately 1356 meters above the sea level. We did not stop at Kempty Falls, so just enjoyed the view from our traveller and continued our journey. After travelling few more kilometers, we took our first halt at some local hotel and had our breakfast.

Picture Clicked En Route

After breakfast, we resumed our onward journey. Steering through the challenging roads, mesmerized by the natural beauty, crossing Purola Village enroute we reached Naitwar around 3:30 PM. Naitwar is medium sized village which comes under Mori Tehsil in Uttarkashi District of Uttarakhand. Naitwar village is known for being the entrance and starting point of the Govind WildLife Sanctuary. We took a halt at Naitwar in order to do the entries (name, age, emergency contacts etc) in the forest records.

Entrance Gate of Govind Wildlife Sanctuary

Map of the Sanctuary with route details

Check Post of Wildlife Sanctuary in Naitwar

Group photo at entrance of Sanctuary

Govind National Park, also known as Govind Pashu Vihar, was established in 1955 for the conservation of Snow Leopard, Himalayan Black Bear and other endangered species. It covers an area of 958 sq km and includes mountains like Swarg Rohini, Black Peak and Bandarpunch. River Tons nourishes the entire area and helps the vegetation to flourish in the sanctuary. The area is rich in medicinal and ayurvedic plants and is a botanical paradise for Ayurveda Practitioners. After completing the formalities, we again boarded our bus and resumed our journey. The next destination was Sankri and in an hour, around 4:30 PM we reached Sankri village.

Sankri Village

Sankri is a small village situated at 1920 meters of height above the sea level. It is located 13 kms inside the Govind Wildlife sanctuary and probably is the last village connected by bus route. It is the base location for trek to Juda Lake and Kedakantha Summit.

Welcome Board

Another destination from Sankri was Taluka village. The connecting road from Sankri to Taluka was a narrow pass and only LMV like cars, jeeps and tempos could go. So we all got out from our Traveller with our luggage and boarded bolero and continued rest of the journey. From Sankri onwards, the road was pretty tapered and quite rough and dangerous to drive on. But as it is said beautiful things are dangerous so it was, full of scenic beauty too.

Connecting Road from Sankri to Taluka

A Bolero on the way from Sankri to Taluka

A local boy (Mukesh) accompanied us in our journey from Sankri to Taluka

Enjoying the Himalayan Forest Beauty, we finally reached our destination of the day-0 “Taluka” at around 5:45 in evening. Taluka is a very small village with few houses, local shops and one Forest Rest House. The houses and shops are located by the side of the road and the Forest Rest House is situated at the extreme end. There was small pond near the Forest rest house which was almost frozen. The sound of the free flowing water was very clear and it could easily be judged that some river is nearby.

Taluka Village

At Taluka, we met our guide and two porters who were going to be the part of the rest of our journey. After a small discussion about whether staying in the guest house or do camping we finally decided to stay in the guest house. So, we did our bookings in the Uttarakhand tourism “Eco Log Huts” which offered us a bed and a quilt. After having dinner, we all slipped into our beds and soon fell asleep. And this is how our day zero ended with lot of travelling.

Onward journey will be covered in the next post