Trek to Pindari Glacier

A year later I am writing this post, made the trek to Pindari ( Uttranchal - Kumaon) in year 2005 in November.
Route which we took was -

Mukteshwar-Bageshwar-Song ( By road) - 2.5 km trek to Loharkhet.

* This was done almost when sun was set so quite eerie...and we met this drunk guy on the way....I always bump into drunks...in buses/ on flights...and on Treks...! We stayed at this rest house in Loharkhet .
In the morning 13 km Steep climb to Dhakuri. Views of Nandakot and Maiktoli range in the setting sun was worth all the pains and our new found muscles. We even found the nerve to do full 1 hr Yoga session as well....!!

Next morning left for Khati ( good lunch -piping hot dal & chawal and pickle) and made our night halt at Dwali.

* That evening I think we all felt some sort of friction within each other- fear of darkness....fear of coping ....fear of fear.... !! Yoga took a big jump in Pindari river :-) ....comforted each other....and by the time partook our dinner - were back to our normal self.

Destination Pindari ( almost 25 kms in a day ) as we were not staying back we started very early next day and by 12 noon we were there. Highlight of this day -met Pindari Baba - he is amazing personality. When we returned back from the " 0 point" he was waiting for us with Hot pooris and Chai. Such awesome welcome for the warriors !! We must have talked about varied range of topics - he has trove of tales and his fav subject is studies of Stars , his Ashram is sort of like a lab....!

We were quite reluctant to return back to our base camp. ( I know that all of us will retrace our path to that ashram again...its on the cards....For me this week(2006) could have become " my calling" - if not stuck up in city... thats another story...!!)

So from there on it was return Journey.... met another interesting person while trekking down !! Infact I would say that you do end up meeting such weird characters more on these off beaten path....and then you feel normal !!


Quick stops to Baijnath/ Bageshwar and PatalBhuvneshwar - First 2 places have some beautiful ancient Shiva temples and carved statues.....temples architiecture is something which leaves you breathless...how they got all those stone work put there. Cave at PatalBhuveneshwar is a MUST see....its sort of reminds of you as if you are slithering down inside a Huge Cobra.......all the stories are amazing pc of work......salute' to the writer who handed over such color ful tales to this generation that you start believing - one in particular which sort of sparked my adventure streak was - there is this hole and they say that if you crawl up in that tunnel it opens up at Badrinath ( its not allowed....:-(
There was this one more tale of that you are not suppose to pick or take anything from this cave...as it results in madness......that was enough impetus for us to scrub our feet of all that soot which we got while we were in that cave......! Did I mention that it would be better to wear sack cloth to enter this cave .....its full of black soot..... !!
It also left us wondering what happens to Mad people going one more time Mad...!
We headed back to Mukteshwar and time to hit back to our homes !

( ps - next time I need to write as soon as I am back from such trips....somehow there were so many highs/ lows to that trip.....and I have been able to write only meager few points....!)