Pindari - Oct.2009

sics66

I am back from my Pindari trek.The experience was awesome.We did have a plan to trek to Kafni too.But some bad weather,time constraints and a knee ligament injury forced us to dump Kafni.Here is an outline of the trek:

6th Oct.:Reached Bageswar around 1 pm. Originally were scheduled to proceed till Loharkhet that day.But incessant rain prevented that.

7th Oct:Still raining.In spite of rain decided to go to Loharkhet and wait for weather to improve.Overnight at FRH,Loharkhet. Weather improved in the evening.

8th Oct: Trek from Loharkhet to Dhakuri. Absolutely clear sky.Overnight at Dhakuri KMVN.

9th Oct.: Trek from Dhakuri to Khati. Overnight at Green Valley Cottage.Fantastic resort about 500 m. before KMVN.

10th Oct.: Trek from Khati to Phurkiya. Lunch at Dwali.Started raining just as we reached Dwali.Had to wait 2 hrs. at Dwali before resuming our walk. We still had to encounter some steady drizzle while walking which made this stretch pretty tough to trek. Overnight at Phurkiya KMVN.

11th Oct: Phurkiya to Pindari Zero point and back to Phurkiya.The weather was brilliant that day. Had tea and Khichri at Baba's place. Had earlier planned to go down till Dwali the same day.But it started raining again as soon as we reached Phurkiya.It rained into the evening and we had to discard the plan to go to Dwali.And that meant we had to skip Kafni too.

12th Oct: Phurkiya to Khati.Overnight at Green Valley Cottage.

13th Oct: Khati to Dhakuri.Overnight at KMVN.

14th Oct: Dhakuri to Loharkhet trek.Then to Bageswar by car.


We hired a guide and a mule. Here I must say some words about our guide ,Nandan Singh Danu.Nandan is 32 yrs. old and from the village Ritang(near Khati).He is a tremendously experienced guide in this route and one of the best(if not the best) in this region. He has successfully crossed the Trail's pass recently with a group from Kolkata.He took care of even our smallest needs.He was always by the side of the trailing person of the team.He would make sure that our water bottles were full and purified before start of the day's trek.As soon as we reached a destination after a hard day's trek,he was ready with hot cups of tea.He even ensured that there was enough water in the toilets.We just had to eat,walk and sleep.Other things were taken care of by Nandan.It seemed to us as if we were on a highly professional and luxurious package tour !! I have been to a few treks earlier.The porters and guides in all of them were very good.But none were as good and professional as Nandan. I will highly recommend him as a guide for anyone planning to trek in this region. I have Panchchulli Base Camp in mind next year and will surely get Nandan as our guide in that trek. Below is a scanned image of Nandan's card containing his photo and contact info:


Here are some pics of the trek:http://picasaweb.google.com/sics66/Pindari#

vko

Nice pics!

__________________
-Vikas

Manzey

Sics66 :- Amazing pics!

Made me remember my solo trip and my stay with baba....it was an out of the world experience.

Cheers!

sics66

Thank you VKO and Manzey.

Manzey,that must have been an amazing experience. If I ever go to Pindari again I will surely try to stay at Baba's place. The ambience there is just magical.

Manzey

Yep - Its was an amazing experience to stay with Baba and ofcourse the place is magical as you said. Sipping tea and looking at the clear sky and white mountains during night was just out of the world experience to me at that place. Next time, I want to stay with Baba for atleast 4-5 days and do nothing. Normally, Baba doesn't allow anyone to stay with him. (That doesn't mean he won't allow anyone to stay with him depends on his mood I guess). But, I was lucky as I was introduced to Baba by a good friend of mine and who knows Baba very well for the last 15yrs. My friend stays with Baba every year for few days and Baba also had stayed with my friend few times when he visited Bangalore during winters. Baba has got some amazing spiritual stories to tell and he cooks excellent poori, khichadi, pokada's etc.


Cheers!

Soura Brata Roy

Hi Sics66

Your photographs took me down the memory lane... I along with my friend went to Pindari and Kafni way back in 1989..... The dwali bungalow looked almost what I remember...

thanks for sharing the phographs with us

Rgds

Soura

Piyush

Hi Sics, nice pics...I did the Kafni trek just a week before you..

sics66

Hi Piyush,

Yes, I was aware of your trek too. I had also planned to trek Kafni.But some intermittent bad weather,time constraints and a torn ligament prevented that. Maybe I can go there again someday(along with Sundardungha perhaps).
BTW,where are your pics, Piyush ?

@ Soura Brata,
Dhonnyobad.

Piyush

davepbm

Hi,
This may sound like a strange question but I am new at this and not sure how to make arrangements for trekking. I am trying to do Pindari trek in 2 weeks and would like to know if you made your arrangements ahead of time, or did you just go to Bageswar and made arrangements after arriving there. Any other guidance would be great too.

Thanks
Dave

sics66

@davepbm

We had planned the trek in advance with Nandan(our guide).Once he got to know about our itinerary,he was the one who made arrangements for accommodation and the mule(to carry our baggage).But you can just go to Bageshwar and make arrangements.Guides and porters can be contacted there(KMVN and Hotel Siddharth are the 2 common places where they meet up).
If you really want to remain tension-free, just try to call up Nandan(his contact info is given in the first post).I can give you my word.....you will be more than pleased with his service.If you call him,just give him my reference as Dr.Chowdhury(or doctor-saab) from Dum Dum.

davepbm

Thank you Dr. Chowdhury for the info. I will call up Nandan as I want to make arrangements ahead of time. Did you have to take all the gear, or was Nandan able to provide necessary gear? What would you recommend in terms of gear other than the usual warm clothes and good hiking shoes? What was general daily expense that I should budget for accomodations and food, and then expense for guide/porter?

Thanks,
PS: if you do not mind, we can exchange contact info at davepbm@yahoo.com

Piyush

Hi Davepbm

For Pindari and Kafni no need to carry any gears...Yes if want to cross Pindari glacier then you need equipments...I managed to get a porter at Song, in fact I met the porter while I was travelling from Bharadi to Song, he was sittting in the same shared jeep..Porters are easily available. Balbir singh takuli was the name of my porter..he stays at Sudhing village at Song..

sics66

davepbm

As Piyush has rightly pointed out,you do not need any special gear to trek till Zero point(near Pindari glacier).
Accommodation at KMVN costs 150/- per person per day.Cost of fooding is about 50-60/- per meal. Nandan charges 400/- per day and a mule will cost 450/- per day.A porter will cost around 350/- per day. One mule can carry load which 2-3 porters are able to carry.The path is so clearly laid out that you really don't need a guide to show you the way.But Nandan was just not our guide.........his service started the moment we woke from sleep and ended when we finally went to sleep. As I had told you earlier,he took care of literally every tiny need.

My email address is sics66@gmail.com

davepbm

Thanks Piyush! So do you just show up and the porter/guide make the arrangements per your needs the same day? At this point I am trying to go trekking by my self and it would be good if I had a guide/porter with me. Any advice for a single newbie trekker? Although I have been raised in India, I currently reside in US and have not done much traveling in India on my own. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,