Walk to a mysterious frozen lake high in the Himalayan Hills (June 2011)

Hi Navin,
Just happened to see your picasaweb albums. You must be an authority on Trekking in the Garhwal and the Kumaon ranges. Your chronicling of the Roopkund Trek was very informative. Actually three of us are planning to do Roopkund between May 12 - May19 this year. Do you have any idea if we can make it to the Lake? Any other tips would be welcome

Ferjin

Thanks a lot for stopping by on this travelogue & scrolling other pics as well; glad to hear that you liked the blog and found it informative.

To my knowledge Trek to Roopkund starts from Mid May onwards; of course it depends on the snow condition as well. Access to the route depends on snow falls which is becoming unpredictable every year and is shifting “ a bit later”. Of course there are professional guys who starts climbing from May 1st or 2nd week onwards. Patch till Kalu Vinayak should be fine; but you will hit snow line beyond this point and from Baghubasa onwards do expect good snow in May.

It would be better to call up a local guide to understand the snow fall they had this year and the current snow conditions. I would recommend checking up the Mahender (our guide; numbers are posted above); quite a humble and honest guy. I remember last year we were debating dates between early and mid June; but had to push our plan to Mid of June due to snow fall in first week. We good honest recommendations from Mahender.

Is there a possibility of shifting your plan by a week or 2 alteast; that will be good coz’ you will find trail access from the previous teams?

What’s your previous trekking experience? How are you planning to do this trek?

-Naveen

@advsahir, can you provide the contact details of your guide? I want to go for Roop Kund betwee June 10 to 20.

Hi Naveen,
We had done Sandakphu in 2009 and Har Ki Doon in 2011, that's our previous experience in trekking. We are in good physical shape despite our age. we had booked the Har ki doon through Peak Adventure tours, Noida and are planning to go with them. The owner Mr.Joshi is confident that we should be able to make it to Roopkund. Had tried to speak to Mahender on the nos. given by you, but his brother Narender picked up and said he was in Goa with a travel party. Couldn't discuss much with him though. Any other suggestions you may have would be most welcome.

@Ferjin, absolutely you guys shall be able to do it, pretty comfortably !! Will try to fetch more information about the trek for this season through a friend.

Thanks Navin, Any inputs would be most welcome. BTW Which camera have you shot those lovely photos?

Mine was a simple Canon point and shoot (14MP); a friend was using Canon DSLR and another one from Sony :-)

offf..........your descriptions and pictures gave us a vivid idea of what we could expect there.Thanks for helping us so much.
Susmit Sarkar

thanks "nkothiyal"..........thank you so much....your informations and link hopefully would be of great help to us.....Would you please guide us with a few more queries....

1.Is it necessary to arrange for a guide and book our accomodation in roopkoond and loharjang....well in advance before reaching loharjang ?


2.Hopefully we are reaching loharjang on 21st june in the evening.....if we could not arrange for a guide an advance will it be possible for us to arrange for all the required stuff within that night and start the next day i.e. 22nd june ?

3. Do we need to carry tent,sleeping bags all the way from kolkata ???

4.we come to know fron ferjin that mahendra is out of station could u please arrange for some other person and give us his number ???

5.as we also plan to trek to homkoond within 24 may and 30th may...how much woolen garments and warm garments do we need to carry ???

I hope i am not bothering you too much.actually we are too much tensed and excited about this trek.Your tips would be of great help tp to us.
Thank You.

Hi Susmit

Thanks ! Comments inline

1.Is it necessary to arrange for a guide and book our accomodation in roopkoond and loharjang....well in advance before reaching loharjang ?
>>Yes, my suggestion is that you should Arrange for the guide before you reach there; they will take care of rest of the things.

2.Hopefully we are reaching loharjang on 21st june in the evening.....if we could not arrange for a guide an advance will it be possible for us to arrange for all the required stuff within that night and start the next day i.e. 22nd june ?
>> That would leave quite some work to be done when you reach there and have to start next day. Also depends on what kind of previous experience you have how self sufficient you guys are to carry on incase you are not able to arrange for the stuff.

3. Do we need to carry tent,sleeping bags all the way from kolkata ???
>> No, you don’t have to carry any of the stuff as long as you are taking complete bundled services (which includes, all the equipment, food, logistics as have stated above) from the guide; unless you just need a guide to ensure you are on the right track/trail.

4.we come to know fron ferjin that mahendra is out of station could u please arrange for some other person and give us his number ???
>> I’ll try to speak with tomorrow and update you guys.

5.as we also plan to trek to homkoond within 24 may and 30th may...how much woolen garments and warm garments do we need to carry ???
>> You need to carry enough woolens; it will be quite cold in May. Carry warm jackets, inners, monkey caps, mittens/gloves.

I hope i am not bothering you too much.actually we are too much tensed and excited about this trek.Your tips would be of great help tp to us.
Not an issue, you are always welcome. Do let me know if any more information is required.

I am really not sure of in what mode you are planning for this trek; you want kind of end-to-end services from the guides or you have all the arrangements and just need a navigator?

-Naveen

nkothial - thanks for all your efforts in describing the Roopkund trek so vividly with the help of excellent photos. We had same kind of feedback from Senior IMer ks_bluechip after his trip there and which had inspired many more IMers to do this trek later on. Now the input you have provided with the cost details and the guide contact numbers will again enthuse so many more IMers.

Hi Susmit

Just now I spoke with Narender (elder brother of our guide last year Mahender) and have mentioned that you may contact him regarding this trek. His another number is 90121-71505; he is available on this number as well; you can use my reference while speaking with him. I recommended this guys strongly due to their immense support last year; one of our group member was the first timer & these guys helped him throughout. They are reliable and "always at service" attitude group.

You can check for complete package deal either from "Kathgodam to Kathgodam" or "Lohajung to Lohajung"

-Naveen

Thanks @Akarn_navokas for your generous remarks; this is a great forum which enables all of us to share our experiences and learn from them

thank u so much....no we are not intending to carry any stuff from home so an end to end deal would be better....that is from loharganj to lohaganj.....we will talk to mahendra soon.thanks once again. - susmit