amit kakkar
Avid clicker...
I along with Sanjay decided to drive a two wheeler to some place not much explored, so finally we zeroed down to scale the top of a mountain which once became the headache of a town in Uttarakhand called Uttarkashi, few years back huge landsliding started from this mountain and the stones, rocks, muddy slush all started to fall straight on the town of Uttarkashi, condition was so bad that then that people even started migrating out of the town, patience of the people, continuous help and support from govt. authorities for years finally brought a still to this mayhem and finally they were able to tie this huge mountain under multiple layers of cement, as every mountain has a name so has this, VRUNAVRAT looks quite strange, but this is all what we have grown with, listening these kind of old stories which actually are now an integral part of our soul, even if logically they seem to be illogical but still they are inside our heart somewhere.
We started at 5:30 in the morning on 6th June'2016, when most of the India was burning in heat waves we started wearing warm jackets. I was driving and along with my camera Sanjay was riding pillion. We were in no time on top and entire town of Uttarkashi, the temple town of Uttarakhand as they call was way down there. We were enjoying some breathtaking vistas from up there, view of Uttarkashi town on the side of Gangotri were amazing.
Some breathtaking views of Bhagirathi valley on Gangotri side
Early rays of sun lightening up the entire valley
Despite of clouds, sun never stops giving
We kept on driving & climbing up for almost around next 18 to 20 kms, well laid tarred road, perfect for four wheelers as well. We were crossing mountains after mountains and were negotiating with those nicely constructed hair pin bends, amidst tall pine tree forests, only a handful of people and vehicles we encountered en route.
Excellent views of Uttarkashi town all the way, sun rising from behind the mountains, chirping of birds all around, fresh air without even a single particle of pollution, tall standing pine trees, out of the world experience.
These hair pin bends are real examples of Engineering at its best
Pine tree forests everywhere adds to the beauty of the valley
While negotiating these beautiful twists and turns while driving, we found a small temple,
locals call it the temple of Eddit Devta, each and every mountain village has their own Deity in Uttarakhand, and their temples are positioned on hilltops so that they have a view of entire village along with the valley, so that the villagers and people around stay blessed always and are always in Deity's sight.
In this small temple building, white in color standing exactly between the tall standing pine trees adds to the beauty of this small Pine tree temple complex, here we found nothing except peace, chirping of birds, beauty of nature and calmness of the moment, a small track leads all the way to the temple from main road and after reaching here time actually stopped, no mobile phone reception, no business worries, zero tension, head on encounter with nature, on the back side of this temple, complete valley view complements to the beauty of this place, we
found a small platform and spend some quality time there, in the lap of nature and clicked some photographs using my Nikon.
Temple architecture standing tall and accomplished in the lap of nature
Enjoyment in the beauty and solitude of the hills is priceless
BABAJI with a MOBILE Phone . . .
When done with this place, we again took that track to reach the road and were simply amazed to see the tough
lifestyle these village people live, everyday they collect this dry grass from forests to cook food in their houses, see how much weight this lady is carrying, the kind of terrain they cover, all mountainous climbing up negotiating with the steep ascents, hats off, where we are talking of smart cities, progressive India, India shining, this is the face of real India, see the foot wears this lady is wearing, where we crave for Nike/Adidas/bla bla bla brands they are happy and accomplished with what they have, it looks they have understood the language of nature and hence living this healthy lifestyle.
After reaching a small village called Sangrali, which is located on the left side of the road while scaling up we touched the road less road, after crossing some 400 mtrs from this point we saw a gate and after entering that gate there were 2 tracks, one was going down and the other one up, we wanted to reach the top point, hence took the upper trail after dealing with some 200 mtrs of that steep ascent, our vehicle denied to take both of us, so Sanjay was off walking and I rode for next 200 mtrs alone, stopped and left activa for Sanjay coming from behind and started walking, I saw some shortcut trails very tough for someone to even stand on and decided to take them to reach the top, reached on top almost with Sanjay.
Small invisible trails I took to climb all the way from down there
After reaching the top views from there were breathtaking, mind blowing and out of the world. Entire town of Uttarkashi was visible as if we were looking at it from a chopper or an aircraft, river Bhagirathi was looking like a small stream of water, buildings were looking smaller than matchboxes, those terraced gardens were adding to the beauty of that huge valley behind the town of Uttarkashi.
View of Uttarkashi town from VRUNAVRAT top
Sanjay enjoying on top of VRUNAVRAT
On the other side of the valley was forest of pine trees standing on the lush green carpet of green grass, we took some photographs and enjoyed those vistas before starting for the backside of the valley.
Backside valley
This side of the valley looked more interesting as we traversed the ridge to reach there, we were surrounded by tall standing symmetrical pine trees, everywhere we look was nothing except those serene valleys, mighty nature ,those soothing and heart touching chanting of the hymns coming from the village Sangrali and finally the feeling of accomplishment. Clicked some photographs of Sanjay.
Sanjay with a couple of props picked from the valley itself
We were the only two in that big pine tree forest on top of the mountain, not even a single person or thought to bother, we clicked some pictures there and when we were about to move back we saw a trail going right on the top of the mountain on the other side, without even talking to each other we both knew what we had in our minds and there we were climbing that trail, I think one of the good things I did before starting for this trip was keeping a bottle of water in Activa, which actually helped us a lot while climbing that trail, that trail was slightly challenging as we were doing this trail without any formal preparation as everyone knows the kind of lives we live now a days, it looked slightly tough in the start but as we kept on moving up the energy from inside kept on pulling us and finally we reached the topmost point and were awe strucked after seeing those views from top, it was cloudy else you get to see those long standing Great Himalayan white peaks from there, we wanted to explore the top more but it started to drizzle and we decided to descend and were actually surprised to see that how far we had climbed it.
While returning back from trek
Posing while returning back from trek
I interviewed Sanjay about his experiences of this entire journey along with which I captured his dare as well of driving the Activa on the ridge of the mountain, do have a look at this video clip as well.
Though I have tried to document the kind of experience and adrenaline rush we went through but to actually experience this one has to be there.
One thing which I forgot to mention was we sighted some pheasants and a lot of Himalayan birds along with some huge birds flying over the valley, this place is perfect for birdwatchers as well.
We thought of clicking a couple of signature poses before signing off, mine was clicked the day before as I can be seen in shorts and T shirts as it was bright sunny the previous day.
THATS Meeeeeeee .........
We started at 5:30 in the morning on 6th June'2016, when most of the India was burning in heat waves we started wearing warm jackets. I was driving and along with my camera Sanjay was riding pillion. We were in no time on top and entire town of Uttarkashi, the temple town of Uttarakhand as they call was way down there. We were enjoying some breathtaking vistas from up there, view of Uttarkashi town on the side of Gangotri were amazing.
Some breathtaking views of Bhagirathi valley on Gangotri side
Early rays of sun lightening up the entire valley
Despite of clouds, sun never stops giving
We kept on driving & climbing up for almost around next 18 to 20 kms, well laid tarred road, perfect for four wheelers as well. We were crossing mountains after mountains and were negotiating with those nicely constructed hair pin bends, amidst tall pine tree forests, only a handful of people and vehicles we encountered en route.
Excellent views of Uttarkashi town all the way, sun rising from behind the mountains, chirping of birds all around, fresh air without even a single particle of pollution, tall standing pine trees, out of the world experience.
These hair pin bends are real examples of Engineering at its best
Pine tree forests everywhere adds to the beauty of the valley
While negotiating these beautiful twists and turns while driving, we found a small temple,
locals call it the temple of Eddit Devta, each and every mountain village has their own Deity in Uttarakhand, and their temples are positioned on hilltops so that they have a view of entire village along with the valley, so that the villagers and people around stay blessed always and are always in Deity's sight.
In this small temple building, white in color standing exactly between the tall standing pine trees adds to the beauty of this small Pine tree temple complex, here we found nothing except peace, chirping of birds, beauty of nature and calmness of the moment, a small track leads all the way to the temple from main road and after reaching here time actually stopped, no mobile phone reception, no business worries, zero tension, head on encounter with nature, on the back side of this temple, complete valley view complements to the beauty of this place, we
found a small platform and spend some quality time there, in the lap of nature and clicked some photographs using my Nikon.
Temple architecture standing tall and accomplished in the lap of nature
Enjoyment in the beauty and solitude of the hills is priceless
BABAJI with a MOBILE Phone . . .
When done with this place, we again took that track to reach the road and were simply amazed to see the tough
lifestyle these village people live, everyday they collect this dry grass from forests to cook food in their houses, see how much weight this lady is carrying, the kind of terrain they cover, all mountainous climbing up negotiating with the steep ascents, hats off, where we are talking of smart cities, progressive India, India shining, this is the face of real India, see the foot wears this lady is wearing, where we crave for Nike/Adidas/bla bla bla brands they are happy and accomplished with what they have, it looks they have understood the language of nature and hence living this healthy lifestyle.
After reaching a small village called Sangrali, which is located on the left side of the road while scaling up we touched the road less road, after crossing some 400 mtrs from this point we saw a gate and after entering that gate there were 2 tracks, one was going down and the other one up, we wanted to reach the top point, hence took the upper trail after dealing with some 200 mtrs of that steep ascent, our vehicle denied to take both of us, so Sanjay was off walking and I rode for next 200 mtrs alone, stopped and left activa for Sanjay coming from behind and started walking, I saw some shortcut trails very tough for someone to even stand on and decided to take them to reach the top, reached on top almost with Sanjay.
Small invisible trails I took to climb all the way from down there
After reaching the top views from there were breathtaking, mind blowing and out of the world. Entire town of Uttarkashi was visible as if we were looking at it from a chopper or an aircraft, river Bhagirathi was looking like a small stream of water, buildings were looking smaller than matchboxes, those terraced gardens were adding to the beauty of that huge valley behind the town of Uttarkashi.
View of Uttarkashi town from VRUNAVRAT top
Sanjay enjoying on top of VRUNAVRAT
On the other side of the valley was forest of pine trees standing on the lush green carpet of green grass, we took some photographs and enjoyed those vistas before starting for the backside of the valley.
Backside valley
This side of the valley looked more interesting as we traversed the ridge to reach there, we were surrounded by tall standing symmetrical pine trees, everywhere we look was nothing except those serene valleys, mighty nature ,those soothing and heart touching chanting of the hymns coming from the village Sangrali and finally the feeling of accomplishment. Clicked some photographs of Sanjay.
Sanjay with a couple of props picked from the valley itself
We were the only two in that big pine tree forest on top of the mountain, not even a single person or thought to bother, we clicked some pictures there and when we were about to move back we saw a trail going right on the top of the mountain on the other side, without even talking to each other we both knew what we had in our minds and there we were climbing that trail, I think one of the good things I did before starting for this trip was keeping a bottle of water in Activa, which actually helped us a lot while climbing that trail, that trail was slightly challenging as we were doing this trail without any formal preparation as everyone knows the kind of lives we live now a days, it looked slightly tough in the start but as we kept on moving up the energy from inside kept on pulling us and finally we reached the topmost point and were awe strucked after seeing those views from top, it was cloudy else you get to see those long standing Great Himalayan white peaks from there, we wanted to explore the top more but it started to drizzle and we decided to descend and were actually surprised to see that how far we had climbed it.
While returning back from trek
Posing while returning back from trek
I interviewed Sanjay about his experiences of this entire journey along with which I captured his dare as well of driving the Activa on the ridge of the mountain, do have a look at this video clip as well.
Though I have tried to document the kind of experience and adrenaline rush we went through but to actually experience this one has to be there.
One thing which I forgot to mention was we sighted some pheasants and a lot of Himalayan birds along with some huge birds flying over the valley, this place is perfect for birdwatchers as well.
We thought of clicking a couple of signature poses before signing off, mine was clicked the day before as I can be seen in shorts and T shirts as it was bright sunny the previous day.
THATS Meeeeeeee .........
Last edited:
