Pin Parvati pass trek completed

jyotipg

Hi,

We completed the Pin Parvati pass trek last week. We reached the top of pass on 10th Sep at around 9 AM. Weather was very bad and it was snowing very heavily as we reached the pass. so, could stay just for a few minutes.

One more team with members from himalaya_trekkers also reached the pass on the same day.

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dooms

Congrats Jyoti

Waiting for your pics

rajkumar

Hi,
Great to hear from you> Congratulations ! hope you had a nice trek. Waiting for the trek report and photos too.

jyotipg

Adding a few of the pics.. the low res ones as not to eat up space.

Attached Thumbnails

         

         

jyotipg

More more pics.

Attached Thumbnails

         

AvidTrekker

Congrats jyoti !!

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jyotipg

Avid,

Thank you for all your help and patiently answering all those querries during the days of planning for the Pin Parvati pass.
Do let us know about your trekking adventure in this season.

vinayverma

Congrats Jyoti...lovely pics. I shyed away from pin parvati last year while I was in the region. Didn't had enough in me to even attempt it.
Great to see your pics and waiting for the full report.

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If Life is a journey....travel on...and on..on..on.....

jyotipg

More Pics of the trek as uploaded my group member Lakshit. He is gud photographer and the Pics speak for it. Enjoy...

http://himalayasphotos.fotopic.net/c1089282.html

praks

Good show Jyoti. Wish you many more years of safe and enjoyable treks. Great pics.
You seemed to have had good weather before and after the pass. A pity it turned bad at the pass.

jyotipg

Pin Parvati Pass Trek- 2006

Pin Parvati Pass is a high pass that connects the lush green Parvati valley of Himachal Pradesh to the remote rugged and barren tribal area of Spiti over a height of 17500 feets. It is graded a very difficult pass owing to its height, inhospitable terrain and number of days that have to be spent away from the Civilisation. We leave the civilization on the 1st day of the trek at Kalga (A beautiful village on height of 2200m full of apples orchards, cannabies, and the isreali hippies) and reached the civilization again on Day-11 at Mudh (A small village with population is 250) on Pin Valley.

Here is an iterinary of events as it unfolds.

Day-1: A 16 hours long overnight journey from Delhi to Bhunter which was extended by another 6 hours due to landslides at Bilaspur. Reached Manikaran at 5 PM and then took a jeep on a very rocky narrow road to Barsheni. Then a steep climb on foot takes us to the beautiful village of Kalga. This is our destination for the night and the last day in civilization before we reach spiti. Overnight at Sunshine Guest house.

Day-2: We start the trek at around 11PM. The trek passes through thick forest and we cross several small mountains stream on the way and a beautiful waterfall. Some stretches are tricky and very narrow. You slip on the rocks and go down the valley by several hundred feets. We trek for 5 hours to reach the beautiful camping ground at Khirganga (2920m), which is famous for the hot springs. A refreshing bath in the spring takes your tiredness away. Khirganga has a few ascetics who live there for years and descend to lower heights in winters when khirganga is covered with a layer of 10 feets of snow. We met a renunciate Mr. Arun from Bangalore who has been staying there in a small cave under a tree since last 16 years. Widely known by piligrims and dhaba wala as Babaji, he has travelled around the world and spends his summer in Khirganga in the same tree. Overnight in Tents.

Day-3: Started late again. Today the trek is still though thick forest. The trek is long and tiring. TundaBhoj (3400 Mts.) is the upper limit for the pine forests and now on there is an abundance of Bhoj ( Birch) trees. Camp in a green meadow. Pass through beautiful grazing grounds of Mandror and Nihara on the way. Some of my team members are tired. So, I decide to camp near a raging river just before the steep climb to Tunda bhuj. Its nice clear night and moon came out of the mountains and gave a beautiful view of the valley. We had a small campfire and dinner in the open. Tomorrow we would be over the treeline so no more campfires there after. Overnight at tent.

Day-4: Started early by 8 AM today. It took an hour to negotiate the steep climb to Tunda bhuj. It’s a clear spotless blue sky . Not even a single patch of cloud. The view from Tundabhuj of the whole Parvati valley was amazing. The trail is steep and hard in some sections close to Thakur Kuan . This area falls within the Kanawer Wildlife Sanctuary and one may encounter small Himalayan Brown Bears at lower elevations and Wild Sheep or the Snow Leopard at higher altitudes. There is a small seasonal dhaba at Tundabhuj which offers tea and snacks to tired trekers. The dhabawala told us that there was a bear near his dhaba a day before who had come down from the forest to chase the sheeps. The trail is rocky in few sections but the beautiful meadows on the way compensate for it. We reach the Thakur kuan around 1 PM and it started raining heavily. We pass the day chatting with other fellow trekkers who are on the same trail. Overnight at tents.

Day-5: Started at 8 AM. Descend down towards the river and reached a small iron trolley which has to be used to cross the raging river. You need to sit on it with your lugguage and pull yourself to the other bank. Then lock the ropes and descend to the river bank. We start ascending slowly and the trail now becomes rocky. We cross past the Diwi Nallah and the tree cover is nomore. We find small junipers on the way. We are on a height of 12000 feets and altitude is beginning to show its affect. Walking is slow and we start getting tired soon on small climbs. Soon, we reach the huge natural rock bridge at Pandu Pul. This is tricky again and our guides helps our get past these bridges safely. Then a steep climb and the junipers disappear. This narrow ridge is like a small funnel covered on all sides with mountains but open 2 sides. This causes very high winds. So, we are shivering due to wind chill even if its 1 PM in the afternoon and the sky is clear. We get the breath taking views of Kullu Eiger peak from here. We are tired but no camping ground in sight to protect us from the high speed winds. We trek for another two hours on several rocky ridges until we reach a beautiful camping ground just before Odi Thach. It’s the best camp site we had till now. Very flat with river flowing nearby and as large as the size of a football ground. The views from the campsite are amazing. Overnight in Tents.

Day-6: Start at 8AM. Today is a easy trek along the river bed. Crossed a few streams and rested on the river bank. One of the easy days and we reached the campsite for the day at around 1 PM. Lazed around river banks. The camp site is just 2 hours before Mantalai. Overnight in tents.

Day-7: Another short but steep day. The trail is very rocky. We are in the glacial zone. Absolutely no vegetation. We could see the snout of the glacier on the Kullu Eiger side and also the massive ice walls. It’s a total live glacial zone on the other side of the river all the way till kinnaur. The steep climb continues and then we see the holy lake of Mantalai. The lake is a depression formed by the water flowing from nearby glaciers which surround the lake. Some of us took a holy dip in the ice cold waters and offered prayers at the lake for the difficult trek ahead which was yet to begin. Lazed around the lake for the rest of the day and waited for moon to come appear at night. But unluckily, the weather was not clear and couldn’t capture any pics at night. It was very cold at night and our porters made a small fire using the mule dropping and we were sitting around talking about the trek ahead.

Day-8: Today is the most difficult day of the trek. We start the day at 8:30 AM by crossing a ice cold river. The water level is high and the we have to take off the shoes. As we step in the cold water, it sent chills down the spine and we our feet were numb for several minutes after crossing it. Then started the killer climb. We were all well acclimatized and started the climb with lots of enthu. As we climbed one ridge, another appeared behind. We cross this ridge and then one more appears. This killer sequence continues though out the day. There was hardly a stretch which was flat. We climbed and climbed and climbed. By the time we crossed the last ridge, we were almost dead. Not even any energy to move a muscle. Now my team mates were all cursing me for deciding on such a difficult trek. We were ready to camp anywhere and desperately needed some rest. Just then the guide told that we have still another three ridges to cross and also a ice cold river to negotiate. The whole stretch ahead was full of big boulders and any slippage could lead to breaking of a bone. Left with no choice, we dragged our half dead bodies slowly ahead. Every step ahead was a huge effort. It was a real test of our physical and mental strength. Finally around 4:30 PM we reached the high camp just below the snowline.

Day-9: The D-Day. We got up early by 4 PM. Got ready begin the final Push to the pass by 5:30 AM. The weather was very bad. It was cloudy all around and visibility was poor. We were immediately on the snow and climbing. Some portion were very slippery and we had to be careful not to slip down. Soon, we climbed the ridge where we saw the fresh pug marks of a snow leopard. And then we saw the first wide yawning crevasse on the glacier. It was some hundred feets deep with strange ice formation forming a teeth like net to shallow everyone who steps onto it. The weather slowly started getting better and then we could see the whole range of peaks all around us. It was a great feeling to be almost at same height as the nearly peaks. We crossed a few more snow ridges and then a steep climb to the pass. The view of the pass was a kind of anti climax. Compared to the snow all around, the top of the pass was barren, rocky with not even a patch of snow on it. We slowly started climbing the final frontier when it suddenly started snowing. By the time, I reached the top, totally exhausted and out of breath, the porters were rushing down to the other side. The visibility had gone down. Before the feeling of achievement could sink in, my guide was making frantic call to descend immediately. I clicked a pic with the yahoo banner and then started descending to the other side of pass immediately. The snow now became heavier and the heavy wind was hitting the snow flakes on our faces hard. We were running for safety and wanted to cross the glacier soon before the fresh snow covers the yawning crevasses. We crossed around 7 -8 crevasses and after an hours, we were below the snowline. After that it was a steep descend on the loose scree for almost 2 hours. Then another river crossing and we reach our first campsite in spiti by 1:30 PM.

Day-10: We start at 8:30 AM and begin the march to Ching Patta Maidan. The multi-colored hues of the Spiti mountains was showing up now. There were three rugged barren mountains standing tall next to each other. One has a reddish shade, other one had a greenigh and the third one had a yellowish shade. This is the rugged, barren magic of Spiti. The whole panorama was full of wind eroded mountains in different shapes and sizes. Mountains with tall needle thin spikes as if its nature’s handiwork of creating lots of huge churches in this Buddhist country. Some stretches of trek were on a trail less than 6 inches wide and you have to balance your to make sure not to slide down to the valley below. We reached Ching Patta Maidan by 12:30 PM. Overnight in tent.

Day-11: We start the day early at 6:30. After so many day of isolation, we are eager to be back to civilization. Everyone longing for a long hot water bath, shave, good food and a phone call to the our beloved ones back at home. Today’s trek was easy on a level mud road. We took 4 hours to reach Mudh, the first village on Spiti village 18kms away. Mudh is beautiful village. A kind of small dreamland. Very Very Silent. Nice cool breeze, bright Sun and beautiful mountains around with a river flowing down the valley. This was the end of the long trek. We covered a distance of 132kms on 10 trek days.

vinayverma

Amazing photos and thanks for the write-up.

rajkumar

Thanks for the nice and crisp write up and the photos from both of you. Keep it up !!

landoormama

I'm so very envious..Good Shot.. I went upto Thunda Bhuj last week and can surely imagine your trip.

Keep Going ..The World is Yours

dooms

Thanks for the write up jyoti.

Avid/Jyoti,
What do you think of the reverse route to do Pin Parvati from Mud to Kalga? Any pros and cons? Will it be more difficult that way?
Also whats the best time to do this? July, Aug or Sep?