Friday, November 21, 2008

Chopta-Tungnath-Chandrashila...

continued..
26/10/08
9.00am: after having breakfast we drove off to Chopta...

Chopta (2900m) is situated on the Gopeshwar-Ukhimath road at a distance of about 40 Kms. from Gopeshwar.
Tungnath (3680m), the highest shrine of lord Shiva among the Panch Kedar..The temple of Tungnath is considered to be more than 1000 years old...from Tungnath another 1 km trek leads to Chandrashila....
Chandrashila is the highest peak of Garhwal Range registering an altitude of 4000m...Provided clear sky it displays amazing view of NandaDevi, Trishul, Kedar peaks and Choukhamba peaks...

the road from Sari to Chopta runs through dense forest of Pristine Rhododendron, oak and Deodar trees...
Beautiful langur

Waterfall

Dense forest
and meadows..
Good Motorable roads
arrived Chopta at 10.30am. booked a room and by 11.00am we start trekking for Tungnath... concrete road...naah...not getting the trekking feeling
compared to Deoriatal slope was much gentle
Captivating meadows



we move on
Winter ahead...Temple of Tungnath is gonna closed from 5th nov...a vendor closed his shop and getting back to village...





guess we find Haldiram mixture here


Arnab became Eskimo



all of sudden its start raining...
yahoo..its not rain...its snow...snowfall!!!!

Alpine Harbel Research Institute

by 1.30 pm we are at Tungnath...
oh no...Manabesh left behind...he cramped his right leg!!!!

Tungnath Temple






1 of my best picture
Hill crows...much larger compared to what we normally see
when we start trekking Chandrashila was out of our plan...but after seeing Chandrashila peak just ahead...we decide to take it on...Manabesh not coming...its already 2.30 pm...and we have to complete this 1 and half kms trek by 4.00pm...slope is much steeper this time...also no concrete, proper trekking road this time...

Hats off to Shibu-da...
Destiny just ahead
another great photography by me...lol
half way down...Shibu-da decided to step back...felt like he not gonna make it...but i bet, he could have done it easily...young guns Arnab and myself are determined to complete it...its 3.00pm..1hr in hand...we rushed up...very soon we r above clouds... Oh yes we made it and its only 3.15pm
we can relax a bit
Cairn feeded with 2 more stones
.......Photo-Session.....



Nandadevi Peak





by 3.30pm we start getting down

and we got to Tungnath by sharp 4pm...excellent time management...after having a plate of maggie we start getting down to Chopta...

Marvelous sunset
we got back to Chopta just before dusk..
27/10/08
woke up early see another Sunrise...sky was much clear...







Here comes Sapurna Anandji who is making aloo parantha for us..
After having breakfast, we left Chopta at 8.30am for Dehradun...


More waterfalls



we took a halt at Rudraprayag and visited the Sangamsthal of Alakananda and Mandakini rivers

..Hanging Bridge..

Finally we arrived at Dehradun by 7.30pm and had our dinner...we took the Dehradun-Delhi AC special train and arrived at Delhi next morning...
Cheers....
Hriday

1 comment:

Astral said...

thanks for posting this blog on Tungnath. We r planning to visit Tungnath in may. ur pictures have given us good idea about the place.GOOD JOB!! can u pl tell me if one can stay for a day at tungnath and what place one can stay in chopta. and if one wants to go to deoriyatal, should one stay at ukimath or from chopta one can do it ?
sorry...for so many questions !! also ur advice on trek to tungnath ...!!

thanks .