At the end of the May I had started for Delhi to reach to Joshimath, a renowned hill station on the way to Badrinath along with some of my friends. We reached Haridwar and stayed for a night. Next morning we hired a jeep for Joshimath. Our journey started at about 6 A.M. We left Haridwar and Rishikesh and the stiff hilly road started. The road was passing along the river Ganges. Within few hours we reached Devaprayag and had a halt for breakfast. Devaprayag is the confluence where the river Bhagirathi from Gangotri has met with Alokananda, originating from Badrinath.Devaprayag is a junction point. One road was proceeding towords Gangotr and Yamnotri along the river Bhagirathi,while the other one proceeding towords Kedar and Badri along the bank of river Alokananda. We took the later one towords Badrinath. Gradually we left back Srinagar, Rudraprayag, Chamoli, Pipalkoti, Hellang and finally arrived at Joshimath at about 3. 30 PM.
Joshimath is a small town where Badrinath is worshipped during winter when the main temple becomes closed due to snow. We took a hotel and had a lunch. Then we started the preparation for next day’s trek towords Kuanri Pass, one of the spectacular passes of Himalaya at the juncture of the valleys of the rivers Dhouliganga and Birehiganga at the altitude of about 13 thousand feet. High mountains with snow caps were looking wonderful.
Next morning the journey started at about 6 O’ clock. A jeep took us with all our belongings and ration for next few days. The jeep took a steep road proceeding towords Auli, about 13 Km from Joshimath. Snow capped peaks were visible. Soon we reached Auli, a wonder on the heaven. It’s a really beauty on the earth. A green wave surrounded by green forests and snow capped mountains. The longest ropeway Joshimath – Godson Bugiyal is passing through Auli. Each year lots of tourist comes here in the winter for skeeing when the whole area becomes covered with snow.
Our trekking started from Auli along with our guide Ravi, a local young lad and a mule carrying all our luggages and rations. We passed through a green grassland towords the Tower no. 10 at Godson Bugial, the termination point of Joshimath – Godson Ropeway. Then we entered the dense forest of Nandadevi Sanctuary. The large old trees covered the most part of the sky and we proceeded towords the Godson Bugiyal through the darkness of the forest. Soon we found a small temple of ‘Padiar Devta’ worshipped by the local shepherds.
A moderately steep climb took us to a beautiful pasture, Godson Bugiyal, one of the most beautiful bugiyals in the world. We had to proceed along the grassland with so many beautiful flowers. We tried to proceed in such a way so that we can avoid the crushing of flowers, but failed. The bugiyal is covered by thousands of beautiful flowers of varieties of colours. The area is carpeted in green and weavy throughout. The way is climbing steep and sometimes going down.
We were proceeding towords another very beautiful bugiyal, Tali bugiyal. The sky is blue having some clouds here and there. We had some rest on the rocks spread all over the pasture. But Ravi was not ready to waste time. It would take time and some showers may create trouble on the way. So we started again. But our luck was hard. Our guide lost the way and ultimately couldnot find it. We wondered here and there in a foggy weather and couldnot find a way. He became very much confused
and couldnot suggest what to do. We found some shepherds wonderingwith there sheeps. We asked them and came to know that Tali was at least 2 Km from there. So we decided to camp that place, named Chainia bugyal. No doubt it was a very beautiful place.
We had cooked ‘khichri’ and had a nice late lunch. We had some chatting and songs inside the tent and went back inside sleeping bags as the darkness spreade all over the pastures. The chilly breeze disturbed the night sleep.
The next morning we woke up early and became stunned to find that all the famous peaks of Garwal were at our doorstep. That was really a heavenly scene. It seemed that we had made a hard journey in the hope of viewing such a lovely scenary. The peaks like Doongiri, Hathi, Ghori, Nilkantha, Rathban, Kamet and so many known and unknown peaks were at the doorsteps. We became too much excited to view such a lovely scenary.
Now the time has come to take a decision, what to do now. We had several problems. One of our members became the victim of altitude sickness. The mule that took our baggages also went back and we couldnot get another mule to take us to Kunwary pass. Ravi went back to bring a good guide couldnot get any mule, but he took 3 porters along with a guide. But we had not sufficient ration for all those people and scarcity of rationmight take place there. Hence we took decision not to proceed further rather to spend a hole day here in such a heavenly Place.
We had a lazy morning in the lash green pasture with numerous different coloured flowers under the feet and white snowy peaks on the blue cloudless sky. We are far away from the civilized polluted crowdy world and spent some memorable hours there. The chilly cold breeze was blowing and the sunbath in such a weather was really comfortable.
We started cooking , and soon faced lots of trouble with our oven. The wind was blowing with a good pace and disturbed cooking so much. After lots of efforts we got our lunch at about 3 O’ clock. Finally we started packing up for returning to Joshimath. We got a shepherd who had a horse and he agreed to go upto Auli along with our baggages.
We started our journey at about 4. 30 P.M. We had to leave such a spectacular world trough the same way through which we came here the other day. We reached Auli before the darkness and got a car that took us to Joshimath. Then it was a dark and sleepy town.
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