Trip to munsyari Nov 2011

Started from Chaukori around 14:00 hrs and kept going downhill on a very beautiful valley until reached thal. It’s a nice and small town where you can fill tank of your vehicle and purchase anything you want to carry for onward journey. From there munsyari is almost 80kms but road wasn’t particulary good. It was marred by massive landslides so I was moving up towards munsyari at a very gentle pace. Saw few very nice natural falls on the way. I reached munsyari by 8 pm and checked into KMVN rest house. I am a slow driver so it took longer for me to reach there from thal. Ideally when roads are ok then one should eb able to reach munsyari from thal in around 3-4 hours. I was taken by surprise when I realised that Munsyari is bit down surrounded hills …errr … mountains ( I don’t want to upset Mr Morgan in the movie ‘The English man who went up the hill but came down a mountain’ ). What I had imagined about munisyari was a place up on the hill with vast Himalayan view but in reality it has very limited view. Panchchuli peaks are visible from almost any point in munsyari so that was quite a relief. I had booked in royal suite, which was on the top floor , in KMVN so had a nice view but don’t get distracted by the word royal. All rooms are equally good ( or bad ). I personally didn’t like KMVN because I found it bit untidy. Atleast it was better than the one in Chaukori. It was almost full moon day so Panchchulli looked gorgeous in the moon light around 9pm.

few photos below...


Next day I woke up around 5 am to a beautiful day. As with Chaukori’s, morning in Munsyari was unusually warm for that part of the year ( 2nd week of November ) so I was bit upset because I knew, based on my past experiences with mountains, that warm weather invites cloud which could easily play spoil sport .. Anyways I couldn’t have done anything to change it kept my cool and concentrated on sunrise from the rest house balcony and then by 06:30 am I , along with my uncle ( mamaji ), left for khalia top. I wanted my wife to come along but then I have 3 year old daughter and it wasn’t possible for us to carry her over to Khalia. Somehow my wife was very pleased to stay back in hotel because she really liked the Panchchuli peak from hotel room balcony so in a way crisis got resolved… J I hired one potter who charged Rs 500 to carry my bag with some essential items such as biscuits, water, fruity and few photographic items.
Way to Khalia top is very strenuous but very picturous indeed. If some one is a bird watcher then he or she should be in for a treat.. endless bird chanting all along on the way up. Tracking for Khalia top starts from a point almost 4-5kms from munsyari ( on munsyari – thal route ) and is covered with thick oak trees for first 2-3 kilometetres and then we reach a TRH, which seems never got inaugurated. Reaching up to this point is easy .. ok I should say ‘relatively’ easy… and one can surely take a breather before moving up from there. One can have enchanting view of Panchchuli peaks from there. Tree lining gave way to shrubs and bushes and landscape changed suddenly with grassy meadow all around… every single step there seemed very hard and one can very easily feel lack of oxygen in air. I reached Khalia top by 13:00 hrs which is almost 7 hours but normally it just takes 4 hours for a normal person to reach there. Actually where ever I go I usually take lot of video shots, which takes lot longer than taking still shots, hence I usually take lot longer than others to reach almost any where…


Once I reached Khalia top the most striking feature, for me personally, was the view of Nanda Devi peak from there. I have seen Nanda Devi from Auli and Chandrashila from western side , Kausani, almora, binsar and Chaukori etc from South but had never got a chance to see it from the east.. and gosh… how splendid it looks…..one has to see it to believe it… It is certainly not as close as Panchchuli is but I must admit that I got mesmerised by beauty of it.. all my tiredness evaporated and I just sat on the ground watching the peak .. without winking….but sadly my joy didn’t last long …. Because I had taken so long to reach on the top, cloud formation had started and soon engulfed all peaks on the western side, including Nanda Devi. … then I turned my head towards Panchchuli which dominates the scene from Khalia Top. It was quite hot over there so I threw my jumper and swaet-shirt off and stayed there just in vest. I spent next few hours taking few good Video shots before heading back to Munsyari. I saw sunset on my way back to Munsyari ,from deep jungles …

Then I headed back to KMVN and dinner and then straight to bed…. A day well spent.

Next day was quite dreadful as I had expected due to unprecedented hot weather that had led to very poor visibility with deep cloud cover obscuring view of Panchhulli peak… I was bit annoyed but since I had seen almost everything a day before so had some consolation. I along with my mother , wife, daughter and mamaji went towards Nanda Devi temple which is almost 2 kms from the town. .. oh man… what a place that was… absolutely stunning… all of a sudden whole landscape changed…. Even though I couldn’t see the tip of panchchuli but whatever I saw from there was stunning…. Some river was flowing, don’t remember it’s name, deep below producing a very ‘riverry’ noise in the background and Panchchuli appeared so near that it seemed one could actually touch it from there… … and quite bizarrely I started getting sinking feeling.. not because of what I was actually experiencing but by thought of what I was missing. I could only imagine how beautiful it would have been from Nanda Devi temple if it was a sunny day with clear view of peaks. I felt like crying because I came all the way from so far to such a remote location and then Munsyari was not Nainital where it’s easy to reach.. it took almost 1.5 days to reach there from Nainital and then finally you get to see this crap cloud cover. I saw few blokes appreciating ( or were rather going mad ) how beautiful cloud formation and movement looked but if you ask me then those poor souls either didn’t know what they were missing behind the cloud cover or had no appreciation for Himalayan Peaks…I wanted to suggest them not to waste time and visit khanadala during monsoon season because there’s no point making such an effort just to appreciate clouds on mountains… Anyways in the era of climate change one has to start getting used to such unpredictable weather. My mother had visited that place a day before, when I was on Khalia top, purely because she is very religious by nature so she thought that it would be a nice temple to worship and for the very first time I saw her getting benefitted out of being religious. She got view of panchchuli peaks from that location on a very clear day with sun shinning with full glory all around while I was on Khalia top considering myself luckiest person on the planet. So an important piece of advice to any one visiting Munsyari…. If you reach there and see a glorious sunny day, make sure you visit Nanda Devi temple first… that’s a MUST visit. If you miss Khalia top then perhaps you haven’t missed much but if you miss view from Nanda Devi Temple then you have definitely missed something.


On the way back we spent few hours ar nirthi fall, which is really very impressive. It was late autumn so I wasn't expecting large volume of water but overall due to sheer height fall looks impressive.


Overall Point ( based on my priorities, likings and perceptions ):

Khalia top: overall 6.5/10
Nanda Devi Temple view : 9/10
Birthi Fall : 8/10
Munsyari overall : 7/10

few more photos....

simply magnificent..wow..

would love to see more photos!!

great pics bhaiya....glad to see you here
deepak

Almost all photos are amazing, really amazing ! Thanks man.