Monday 27 October
Sadly, the last trekking day, but to make the most of it we have tea at 5:30 after a night of heavy rain. Breakfast around 6am, much packing, and finally we set off on the steep climb up to Hem Kund (4329 metres) at 6:50.
Anil leads and is soon breaking steps in deep snow.
Richard and Julia fall back but John and I walk together again and stay close
to Anil, who is working very hard. The 1300 metre ascent takes 2½ hours.
Considering the rain / snow in the night, it's a nice day. The higher peaks are
in cloud, but there is sun and a blue sky.
Really good views back down the valley
as far as the main junction at Bhuinder Gorge.
Partridge are disturbed and there
are lots of black redstart around.
Hem Kund has a strange Sikh temple, very large, in a roundish shape, overlooking the snow-covered lake in a small hanging valley.
Note the huge difference between scanned slides (eg above) and scanned prints (eg below) in this posting.
Moving about here is difficult as there is about 2ft of soft fresh snow. There's a large bell which we ring, and a very small Hindu temple.
This is another holy place, visited by pilgrims, but now out of season. There
is a nearby col from which the view would be better, but in the deep snow we
reckon it would take 1½ hours to get there - time we can't afford. (Hem Kund is
not on the itinerary - Monte [last year's leader] told me there wasn't time to
do it - but we have fitted it in with an energetic day and an early start.
Richard arrives after half an hour.
Julia has turned around. The sun is very bright with lots of glare.
I go down first, retracing the
steep upward route with care. Anil had short-cut the many zigzags and headed
very steeply upwards to save time. The snow is deep and soft, so going down, aided
by ski poles is easy. After an hour or so the poles are put away, shorts put
on, and we are back in summer despite a little snow on the ground. It's also
muddy, so boots are needed, and the lovely colours give away the true season.
Back at Gangaria (12:00), Anil and Julia are waiting.
There is welcome tea, then I decide to descend to a more
pleasant spot an hour and a half down the path to Govind Ghat, for lunch and
diary writing, which is curtailed by a shower - the clouds are now down (it's
afternoon of course) - and a shower has got me!
I walk on, gradually descending through lovely autumn colours. The short shower stops, and I wait again for the others. No sign of them so I continue, encountering villages and people, the usual stunted cattle, a field of playful kids (goats) - no doubt destined one day for the pot.
Lots of grasshoppers, sometimes very noisy, the pecking of
woodpeckers in nearby trees - oblivious of my presence, the pleasant song of a
nightingale, drying hay on roofs, rubbish everywhere - in the vicinity of the
worst of which the langur monkeys scavenge -, thrushes, robins, bluebirds (like a
blackbird but dark blue) and crested tits, and as habitation increases, a
return to the usual "s*** , rags and smell of urine" which is India.
I get down at 4:45 to Govind Ghat,
after having waited around for about an hour for John, Richard and Julia.
Vicram and Anil had been waiting for some time. Vicram lit a little fire by the
roadside to warm himself - he had a cold night last night, staying up in Badrinath
(3122 metres) where it snowed, and he has got the beloved Tata as clean as he
can.
The other eventually arrive in the
last glimmer of daylight, at around 6pm, having made many tea stops, a few
navigational errors, and Julia's soles having almost parted company with her
boots.
The porters had gone before I
arrived - I think they were down by lunchtime. I think we were supposed to tip
them but there is no mention of this.
The plan had been to get to Govind
Ghat by 4pm so that shopping could be done in Joshimath before dinner. In the
event, we arrive in Joshimath at 7pm. A suggestion that we shop tomorrow
morning is thankfully quashed (we want to get to the Mercury river camp in
daylight as gear must be transferred across the river, and it's a nicer place -
I think - than Joshimath's tatty shops).
So Vicram gives us a lift to town.
I watch open mouthed as John, Richard and Julia all show their most intensive
activity of the holiday. They are shopaholics. They rush into hardware stores
and grab bells, dishes and ornaments which are sold by weight - brass and
copper items. The intense activity is repeated in three of these places, which
resemble junk shops and stock similar items, if cheaper, before becoming satiated,
and we return down a dark alley with difficult steps to the sanity of the Uday Palace
Hotel and a good meal at 8:30 before polishing off the remains of John's vodka
and adjourning (after disturbing the janitor to light duff but large sparklers
on the hotel roof) for shaving, washing (in a bucket with a flannel again - but
the water is hot), and a fairly early night.
It seems strange that there are still 6 days to go before I return to work, the treks having now sadly finished, 4 days of which will be spent travelling home.
[Today there has been subtle
manoeuvring re the coming Wednesday's activities. Richard and Julia have got
cold feet about rafting and want to go shopping in Rishikesh - can you imagine
- it's a dump! I'm keen to go rafting, for the whole day if possible but will
compromise on a half day. John seems ambivalent. Richard and I are at odds - he
is "on a walking holiday not a rafting holiday" whilst I am "looking
for interesting activities, which do not include shopping for junk".]
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