churdhar peak. closest to delhi

xbhp.com

hi
was just surfing the net for nearby places around delhi , specially high altitude ones. came across this trek to churdhar peak , which is around 3700mtrs high. the trek takes a day and if u r lucky u come across small glaciers on the way and can see badrinath and other mighty peaks on a clear day
the base for the trek is situation around 40 kms from solan (on way to shimla) and around 100 from chandigarh

can any one provide me with more info on this..
like exact locations for start of trek and distance/route from delhi

Lovemax

hi Dude,
Yeah, the track can be started from Lakhoti or to tell you precise, just split on way to Solan towards rajgarh and then stop by a small village.
I have been to this small village from where its like 3 days easy trek to churdhar peak.
I know some locals who do this trek in summer for just funtime with complete packed stuff for the stay and surivival.
If you want more, i can get u more on same.
Happy Hunting.
FreeBirD

harsha

can you please tell me also some details about where to get tents from and what is the mode of transport from solan to this village lakhoti.....

and the best time to be there and other stuff plz...

thanx a ton in advance

Lovemax

Tents can be rented but I do not have clue from where.! Some one will tell you on same lines.
Mode of tranport from Solan to this villages is a regualr bus going towards Narkanda(not via shimla) or Chhaila or Neripul can drop you there. Its like some 10 kms from Rajgarh.

Best times is Aug- Sep.
Other stuff is just get a good person who has a knowledge of this place.
FreeBirD

romi000

I had a burning desire to climb this peak since long , when I visited Jhaku hills at Shimla in 1999, I saw one snow covered peak in the north eats direction , I was amazed to see that peak because according to my knowledge there was no such peak exist in that region so high , My friend told me that this is Churdhar and There is a Shiva temple on the top . I wondered how can such thing exist there , It was then I decided to climb that one day. After that I went to Shimla and beyond several times always gazing at that peak with an urge, this peak is visible from Kasauli, Solon, Shimla, Narkanda, Chakarata (UttaraKhand) and even from Massourie . When I went to Shimla after my marrige in Feb, 2003 I told my wife that I wanted to climb this peak .And I climbed this peak in Oct 2005.



First Day
We were 3 guys Amrit , Anil and myself . We left Delhi early morning at 6:00 AM in my jeep but we still took 2 hours to leave Delhi borders, until then we were not sure about the which route to take , earlier we were planning to take route via Panipat- Jagadhari -Yamuna Nagar - Ponta sahib - Nahan - dulhakuan - renuka lake - NuraDhar , but at the last moment we decided to take Panipat - Ambala - Kalka - Solan - Rajgarh - Nauradhar and we were right because Nahan route is in shabby condition with pathetic roads and literally no town for a 100 Km tedious stretch .

We bought vegetable and other food stuff in Kalka and reached Solan at around 6:00 PM . This is the last point of national Mobile network after this point local BSNL network starts but they don’t provide roaming to any other mobile company and this rule is for all parts of Himachal , Uttranchal and Kashmir .This is the last place where you can fill up the tank (What we thought). After Solan we took a right turn to reach a small town called Rajgarh , this is around 30 Kms from Solan , road conditions is surprisingly quite good . The road, eventually, winds down to the Giri river, flowing quietly past a tiny village called Gaura. Gaura, with neatly laid-out terrace fields, was once the favourite tourist spot of the rulers of Patiala for its mahaseer fishing. (Gaura remined me of Sangla )Just after crossing the Giri river, you enter Yashwant Nagar. This picturesque town is situated on the banks of the Giri. From here the road bifurcates to Chail, which is 29 km away from Yashwant Nagar.

We reached Rajgarh at around 7:30 PM , We checked-in in a small and a good hotel just before the town in front of a police station . This is run by a local Punjabi family .

Making Rajgarh the base camp, you can explore the surrounding valleys. You can go to Deedag (12 km away) on the Naura road either by bus or by trekking. At night, you get to see the lights of Chandigarh, Solan, and other places. From a distance they seem to be like stars twinkling all round you.

There are lots of natural waterfall where you can enjoy a refreshing bath besides relishing the beauty of the surrounding landscape

Second Day
I got out of my bed early morning and climbed to terrace to shot sunrise only to find a huge mountain in front of me . But the experience of dawn was really good, it was still dark but I could able to locate a local gurudwara down in the valley and voice of melodious gurbani was echoing in whole valley . Cool breeze with scent of mountain flowers was flowing through the valley and background music of chirping of birds made this dawn memorable.

We left the town around 7 AM , we saw a petrol pump here . From here you will start seeing Lush Green Valleys, Dense Forest with clean and Fresh Mountain air . Naura is around 25 Kms from here , mid-way I saw a very beautifully located resort . I don’t remember the name of the resort but it is worth staying for a day or two . Condition of road was good ,in the midway we saw lots of waterfalls on the roadsides , we were pretty sure that we would find lots of water up there but we were wrong . We reached Nauradhar at morning 8:30 . This is a Silent town with few shops .We stopped to inquire a Shopkeeper regarding potters and other information , he was very helpful he arranged 2 potters for us but we still need one more so it was decided that we will carry the load up to 1 KM from there and from there we can get one more potter .From Naura you can see a part of Churdhar which seems to be very far away . Shopkeeper told us to park our vehicle in front of his shop . We did some more shopping from Naura and started for trek.


First 2 Kms was very tough and tiring (killing), it is almost elevated at 60 degree , everybody was gasping for the breath after climbing 1 hour we reached to a small habitation of 2-3 houses , there we got one potter for the rest of the journey , so now we had 3 potters , they were very happy to visit temple and our potters took bath for visiting temple although they are not allowed to enter the temple as they are from lower caste (A stupid practice still on) . We started our next part of journey at 1:00 PM from there .


From here route is relatively easy and beautiful , we walked 3 Kms in open grasslands among the route there were huge rocks (around 5 stories of heights) and the best part was they are easily accessible from the backside . They offer great 360 degree view so I recommend everybody to go to the top of those huge rocks and see the entire area , we climbed the rocks while coming back from the peak . from these huge rock we came across a vast grassland which had signs of some old habitation . There were 7-8 strange round platforms made up of rocks in a straight line, this was ideal location for camp (Although water is still half KM from here) .

Now we entered dense forest , after walking 500 Mts we saw a small water stream , we prepared our lunch and tea there. There is a well defined route in forest , there is quite a long walk from this water stream to a place called teesraa where we decided to lay our camp for night, we reached teesra at around 7 PM . This is a ridge where you can see great Himalayan ranges , very good spot for nature photographers . Normally people tends to stay in temple which was around 6 Kms from here but we started late so we decided to stay in tessra. In night temperature dropped to -5 degree (We were carrying one thermometer).


Third Day (Dusshera)
Next morning (It was Dusshera) I came out of my tent before sun come out of horizon , although you are not able to see perfect sunrise from here but I consider it to be my one of the best sunrise in had ever seen ,reason is , being on a good height you see all Himchal ranges on the left side and Utranchal mountain ranges in the right with a very beautiful blue and red light color effect . Every range had unique Blue shade different from other range and in the backdrops you see great Himalayan ranges .From this point I was able to locate chail, kinnur , kinner kailash ranges ,Sri Khand peak, manali peaks.

But I was pretty sure if we would had been near temple (other side of the mountain) we could had witnessed sunrise better then this. We started at around 8:00 leaving our tent and one porter behind . there are two routes from here take left from here . From this point we had to walk on snow so it would had been better if we would had started early .Snow soon turned into muddy snow due to heat of sun. After walking for 1 KM we reached to an open area called Chuthaa . We saw lots of water streams here .

From this point we were able to see peak which was around 3-4Kms . Now from here there are two routes one routes directly goes to peak with a very steep climb and other route goes to temple in the back of mountain and from there a comparatively short climb to peak .But there is one thing common in both the routes and that is routes were full of snow . We decided to opt for first route , it was a steep climb but slow and steadily we were inching towards the peak .

There is one thing dangerous in this route is that if you slips you will go down by at least 500 Mts. in snow , slopes are steep with narrow footsteps and some times you have to give way for devotes coming down from peak. Climbing seems to be so tiring and never ending . We were able to see some figure in the top and gradually with the ascend it was become clear , it was a statue of Lord Shiva, Finally we reached to peak ,and the view was enchanting , a great 360 degree view of Himalayan ranges .

This peak is the highest peak (3300 Mts.) in Shivalik range , although this peak is not higher in terms of treks I had done in past but reaching a peak is altogether a different experience , you get a sense of achievement when you reach there and in my case I wanted to reach here since long . October , November is the best time to climb such places as you have a clear view of mountain ranges , in summers and rainy seasons visibility is very poor and winters this peak receives more then 10 feet’s of snow even in October peak witnessed 2 feet snowfall just before we visited .

We stayed there for 30 min , finally we started our descend to the temple which was around 2kms from here. There are two routes so we got divided in two teams I took slightly tougher one ( not aware of that) . By this time we were totally exhausted and even this trek was very tiring . Finally we reached temple and had darshan of lord Shiva in cave . There is a small Inhabitation around with 3-4 shops selling parsaad and some basic stuff . If you want to stay for night Temple administration runs a free shelter for devotees and they provide free food also 3 times a day , we had our lunch there . The sarai has eight large rooms (like dormitories) and can accommodate nearly 200 people at a time. A blanket can be hired for Rs 2 per day. You will need woolens at night

It was getting late and we had to reach as close as we can to Nauradhar before night .We took the second route to come back although it was long but nobody was in favor of climbing the peak again to reach the other side ,This route was like a rollercoster ride ,we were going up and down in snow for next 6 Kms to reach the point where we opted for first route . Amrit decided to move fast so that he can ready the tent to move down further ,1 potter and our all the stuff was at teesra. I decided to stay with Anil as he was moving very slowly . It was already dusk and murkiness of dark started scattering , now we were 3 person left and when we reached teesra we saw nobody, assuming that the they have left we started our trek further down .

Now it was totally dark and route from here is amid dense forest , we followed the trail in darkness , I was carying a small meglite (Torch) but again I cannot use it because we had travel another 2 more hours and we were running out of batteries so I decided to use it in case of emergency . This was totally a different experience as for the first time I was passing a dense forest in night . We were even trying to locate other team . After walking for one and a half hours I heard some voice this was the other team . They had put up the tent by that time and started preparing for campfire and food . There was one issue here , there is no water available near by, one has to fetch it from a source half KM from here and the worst part was we were cooking Rajma (Kidney beens) that night and it was consuming water in tons . Potter made 4-5 rounds to collect water to cook it .

Cooking apart I decided to explore the area , We were between a vast grassland and in moonlight whole area was turned into a piece of divine belt . Serenity of moonlight made us crazy , with rum in our hand we started strolling that vast bliss of nature leaving potters behind to cook food . night sky — brilliant, bright, criss-crossed with innumerable stars — is a treat to the eyes.
That was I believe one of the best part of the whole trip . We then had food and went for sleep




Fourth Day
In morning we woke up to find our tent covered with small pieces of ice , this was frozen dew. We packed up our bag and started further down . We walked around 2 hours and finally we saw Nauradhar down below and then moving further down I saw my Jeep safe and sound . That was a very steep descend and as soon as we reached Naura it started raining , I thanked god for the timing of rains because by that time we were in our Jeep .It was raining heavily within 10 min not water but ice started falling that was not snowfall but it was small pieces of ice which local call bajree . Whole area got covered with that bajree and become white . It was very similar to snowfall but yes there is a difference in snow and ice (Ice is hard) .

We reached Delhi at 10:00 PM with lots of memories and lots of body pain.

karnail

I also did Churdhar See Here Do you have any more similar trekks.

himadventures

Churdhar is good trail...you can have bus from SOLAN and after doing CHURDHAR you can again reach SOLAN easily. Start early from TOP. NAURADHAR/HARIHAR DHAR is good place to park vehicles.

RAJGARH is famous as many hot-shot personalies of INDIA used to have ORCHARDS here..including leagendary SARDAR KHUSHWANT SINGH.

Half of the trek is dry region-no source of water.

rishabh6296

I have a question,do they have perennial snow,as in do they have snow above the churdhar in peak summer season?

karnail

when I went there, there was no snow at all, not even near by.

rishabh6296

i can well imagine given the height of the peak.
Rishabh

himadventures

Guys ! things are changing very fast in mountains. Churdhar used to have very heavy snow and temple used to be covered with it. It was a breath-taking effor to reach CHURSHAR in MARCH. We used to do this for some years but this is upto 2000.

So, do not get shocked if you see no snow up there but I feel that green cover which used to be in this region will be intact.

dherri

Hi Romi,
Though i read your trip details a couple of years after.Can you please suggest a place and its contact details in Gaura near solan where one can stay(some camp or cottage). Thanks