Name: Kausani - Jawaan Pinnath - Bura Pinnath
Base Camp Location: Kausani, Uttarakhand, India (about 500kms from Delhi)
District:half of kausani falls in Almora distt and the other half in Baageshwar distt.
Participants: Shailendra Negi(a.k.a. chotu), Gagan, Ankur Varshney, Mayank Pathak, Saurabh(a.k.a. mandir) and Me.
Dates: 6/04/07-8/04/07
Distance: around 30 kms to and fro from actual base camp--Kaatali(30mins drive from kausani).
It was 5th April'07. I, Gagan, and Ankur were sulking in office, sortta upset by aimless planning of team mates for the upcoming 3 day weekend. But, we 3 were firm on one thing--"come whatever, we're going outta delhi this weekend". Realised that others are not sufficiently motivated, we hit google. After searching for some treks I happened to come across this little bit of information on uttarakhand gov's tourism site regarding some 3 treks around kausani area. Cool, I thought. Searched for some contacts, rang up some gov departments and I had zeroed on one outta 3. I was excited, wanted to do it badly. Now time to convince others. Luckily and surprisingly it was not at all difficult. Gagan and Ankur're more than eager and they roped in Pathak in no time. Within the next 20 mins we'd booked a cab(Travera) and decided to leave by 8PM. We're only 4 of us till then, it'd be expensive, now was the time for real convincing skills. I pursued negi and the others some of their friends. By the time we left I'd roped in Negi and they mandir. Good job done!!!!!!!
Around 9:30 we're out of Noida, the cabbie was quite a livewire, riding as if straight outta NFS. We'd planned to reach Nainital by 5-6 in morning, sleep in some pocket friendly, nice place for 4-5 hrs, leave for para-gliding(where ??, ha ha, that's another story), leave for Kausani, reach there 10PM, have an overnight sleep, leave for trek Sat early morning, return to hotel by nightfall, and leave for delhi next day(sunday). I'd say that only one thing happened to the plan, i.e., we reached Nainital as planned.
Soon after reaching Nainital we wasted no time in searching for a place rest. After some frantic hotel search we got a decent place at a decent rate, had 1-2 cuppa tea and slept. All of us woke around 11. Now where in god's name is paragliding carried out in or around Nainital ??. Most of the people we asked were clueless, again tourism deptt came in handy. Finally we'd our next destination--Nawkoochiataal. Another hr or two drive, and we're there.
Though slightly expensive(850/- per head) but para-gliding was worth it, a cool, stylo activity. While flying I was really envious of the bird(it enjoys a real cool view of the world). We all had a great time flying, other than Mandir who was not allowed to take off under the pretext of being over-weight.
There was a tall rugged hill behind the take-off spot, you know a type that excites a trekker [:-)] I and negi decided to scale it. It was fun and painful at the same time. The sun was out in the full , and the hill was littered with cactus es and dry bushes. But, both of us braved all the adversies and scaled it!!!!!!!! huraaaah. By the time we got down, others were getting impatient(it was really hot), especially mandir :-), so wasting no time we left for Kausani (that was around 5PM).
It was a beautiful drive from Nawkoochiataal to Kausani via Almora, kudos to the gov for the nice condition of roads. Other than a halt of around 15-20 mins when we stopped to let the beautiful environment sink in, we drove till Kausani nearly non-stop. We're blessed to pass by Almora at night as city's view in dark was enchanting.
Finally, after a long drive we reached Kausani(around 150kms from Nainital) around 11PM. Apart from a couple of restaurants the rest were closed. We stopped by one, the owner(Ramesh Chaudhary) who turned out to be a bit outspoken, but much helpful person was still there. This guy himself runs a hotel, but still, when we asked him about Tourist Rest House(TRH), he himself contacted them to find about the accomodation status there. As the TRH was unavailable(it is a bit expensive too) we took 3 rooms in his hotel (they were OK rooms, if you're with your guy friends, not at all a place for you, if you've a female companion(s)...[:-)] ). The dinner he served was life-saving, we all were dead hungry. By the time the food was served, we'd devoured 6-7 packet of lays and twice that many chocolates. A nice thing happened at the dinner table that needs a mention here.
As already told this guy Ramesh was a bit outspoken. When we told him that we are here to do the so and so trek, he passed an inquiring glance over us and declared "seeing u guys, I say that u can't do it"....wtf!!!, we are coming all the way from delhi just to do this trek and this fellow is saying "u guys can't do it". What do we look like a bunch of couch potatoes ?? huh!!, i felt like giving him the finger. But soon he sortta mellowed down and told that this is a difficult trek to do in a single day. We asked him to arrange two guides for us and decided to leave early morning, by 8AM.
Our first fault--we didn't leave base on time. We left kausani around 9, reached the actual base(the place from where the trek starts) Kaatli by 9:25 and started the trek by 9:30. If you wanna do this in a single day, take my word, start trekking by sunrise, it is a big and arduous trek, takes a lot of time and energy.
The trek started with a comfortable terrain, I thought this is what we won't be able to do ??, huh bring me some real trek!!!!!!. With me and Negi leading the way alongwith one of the guides we reached our first stop--Rudra-dari in about 1:30-2 hrs. This is basically a Shiva temple, one of the two places on the way to Bura Pinnath(BP) where u can get water for ur journey up. There is no source of water at Bura Pinnath, it is available 12 kms down from there, sounds cool for a trek na???. After a round or two of Polo and Chocolates we resumed lap two of our quest.
This lap, from Rudradari to Jawaan Pinnath(JP) was a lot more difficult and energy sapping. The distance covered during the two laps is nearly same(silghtly more in the second), but the altitude keeps on rising and it rises quite steeply, so one nearly takes twice the time to reach Jawaan Pinnath and to tell you what, till Jawaan Pinnath we'd not even caught a glimpse of Bura Pinnath!!!!!!!!!! But somehow we reached JP. "ab samajh aa raha tha, kee log kyon bol rahe the kee ek din mein nahin karpaoge" we took a long halt at JP, recharged our batteries by having pooris, chaach, kurkure's and Lays and enjoying the cool breeze(surprisingly and thankfully it was not at all hot that day). The view from JP was exhilarating. From JP we caught a first glimpse of our final destination--BP, what the hell, it was easily at twice the altitude from where we're standing, and distance, who cares, when one knows how much incline one has to ascent. The guide advised Mandir to return with bahadur(the other guide) but Mandir was not in a mood to give up(already para-gliding nahin kar paya tha bechara). After about an hour or so we began the third and final lap of the way up, JP to BP.
If we had thought that way from Rudradari to JP was difficult and it couldn't get any tougher, then we're definitely wrong. What we'd covered was nothing in terms of difficulty. The climb up from JP to BP was a wicked one, rising at nearly 70-75 degrees at quite a few places, and dry leaves littered all over were making the terrain all the more difficult to negotiate. It was purely adrenalin and the desire to do, that was fuelling us. I, Negi and Pathak, accompanied by one of our guides were leading the proceedings in this lap(through I led, throughout the climb up :-) ). We're totally exhausted, taking stops after every 20 mins or so. But, eventually we did reach our destination--BURA PINNATH. Who was saying that I won't be able to do it???? Pinnath means Shiva's temple. There is a well kept temple at the top, no pujari though. Every year disciples come here to get God's blessings.
It was already 4:15PM by the time we reached BP. We started the trek down(we're taking a different way down) around 5PM, only 1:30 hrs of day light left. We knew it would not be a comfortable trek down. People say that trekking is the ultimate test of perseverance, resistance and patience. I didn't believe it till this trek. On the way down it was already dark, still a lot of distance left to be covered, in between even the guides sortta got confused(you see, these people are not used to travelling at night, it is clearly dangerous, there is no proper way, one has to make his own way through the woods, and the trail is not visible in dark!!!, yes we had very poor quality torches, afterall we never planned to trek in the dark). So my point here is, on the way down(under the circumstances just mentioned) some guys started losing their temper, quarelling with guide, cursing themselves as to why did they opt for this trek in first place??? It was then that I realised the truth of the statement(that people say about trekking).
Eventually somehow after trekking 30-35 kms and for about 13 hrs we reached our base(kaatali) where our cab was waiting for us. Ramesh(the hotel owner) had himself come to pick us up, even they were getting worried for us. Looking into Ramesh Cahudhary's eyes's then I felt satisfaction, for I found a respect for me in those eyes. He was the person who said that we won't be able to do it. A mouth watering chicken curry was waiting (at the hotel) to be devoured by us. I don't know how much I ate that day, what I know is that, I nearly ate 3 times my stomach!!!!!!!!!
Next day we all woke up lazily, pain in the muscles was only starting to manifest itself. But no pain in the world can take away the fun we(atleast I had loads of it) had while trekking, or diminish the sense of self accomplishment at the end of it. It'll always be with us. (sorry for being philosophical)
I'm exhausted writing a log of this trek :-) . So, to summarise we left for delhi around 12 in the afternoon(sunday), had some fun by the side of a rivulet on the way back, were gifted to see a breath-taking view of paady farming, and reached Delhi by 5 on Monday morning.
The album for the trek pics is :-
http://picasaweb.google.com/prakhar.sharma/KausaniBaseTrek
Note:-
If you wanna do this trek or visit kausani, then here are some numbers that might be helpful:-
http://gov.ua.nic.in/uttaranchaltourism/districts/almora/Almora_trek.html#kausani
Ramesh Chaudhary(the guy in whose hotel we stayed, very helpful chap)- 09411328704, 09997557752
Toursit Rest House(this is a government guest house, so better facilities) - 05962258006
For more info feel free to contact me.
Read More......
District:half of kausani falls in Almora distt and the other half in Baageshwar distt.
Participants: Shailendra Negi(a.k.a. chotu), Gagan, Ankur Varshney, Mayank Pathak, Saurabh(a.k.a. mandir) and Me.
Dates: 6/04/07-8/04/07
Distance: around 30 kms to and fro from actual base camp--Kaatali(30mins drive from kausani).
It was 5th April'07. I, Gagan, and Ankur were sulking in office, sortta upset by aimless planning of team mates for the upcoming 3 day weekend. But, we 3 were firm on one thing--"come whatever, we're going outta delhi this weekend". Realised that others are not sufficiently motivated, we hit google. After searching for some treks I happened to come across this little bit of information on uttarakhand gov's tourism site regarding some 3 treks around kausani area. Cool, I thought. Searched for some contacts, rang up some gov departments and I had zeroed on one outta 3. I was excited, wanted to do it badly. Now time to convince others. Luckily and surprisingly it was not at all difficult. Gagan and Ankur're more than eager and they roped in Pathak in no time. Within the next 20 mins we'd booked a cab(Travera) and decided to leave by 8PM. We're only 4 of us till then, it'd be expensive, now was the time for real convincing skills. I pursued negi and the others some of their friends. By the time we left I'd roped in Negi and they mandir. Good job done!!!!!!!
Around 9:30 we're out of Noida, the cabbie was quite a livewire, riding as if straight outta NFS. We'd planned to reach Nainital by 5-6 in morning, sleep in some pocket friendly, nice place for 4-5 hrs, leave for para-gliding(where ??, ha ha, that's another story), leave for Kausani, reach there 10PM, have an overnight sleep, leave for trek Sat early morning, return to hotel by nightfall, and leave for delhi next day(sunday). I'd say that only one thing happened to the plan, i.e., we reached Nainital as planned.
Soon after reaching Nainital we wasted no time in searching for a place rest. After some frantic hotel search we got a decent place at a decent rate, had 1-2 cuppa tea and slept. All of us woke around 11. Now where in god's name is paragliding carried out in or around Nainital ??. Most of the people we asked were clueless, again tourism deptt came in handy. Finally we'd our next destination--Nawkoochiataal. Another hr or two drive, and we're there.
Though slightly expensive(850/- per head) but para-gliding was worth it, a cool, stylo activity. While flying I was really envious of the bird(it enjoys a real cool view of the world). We all had a great time flying, other than Mandir who was not allowed to take off under the pretext of being over-weight.
There was a tall rugged hill behind the take-off spot, you know a type that excites a trekker [:-)] I and negi decided to scale it. It was fun and painful at the same time. The sun was out in the full , and the hill was littered with cactus es and dry bushes. But, both of us braved all the adversies and scaled it!!!!!!!! huraaaah. By the time we got down, others were getting impatient(it was really hot), especially mandir :-), so wasting no time we left for Kausani (that was around 5PM).
It was a beautiful drive from Nawkoochiataal to Kausani via Almora, kudos to the gov for the nice condition of roads. Other than a halt of around 15-20 mins when we stopped to let the beautiful environment sink in, we drove till Kausani nearly non-stop. We're blessed to pass by Almora at night as city's view in dark was enchanting.
Finally, after a long drive we reached Kausani(around 150kms from Nainital) around 11PM. Apart from a couple of restaurants the rest were closed. We stopped by one, the owner(Ramesh Chaudhary) who turned out to be a bit outspoken, but much helpful person was still there. This guy himself runs a hotel, but still, when we asked him about Tourist Rest House(TRH), he himself contacted them to find about the accomodation status there. As the TRH was unavailable(it is a bit expensive too) we took 3 rooms in his hotel (they were OK rooms, if you're with your guy friends, not at all a place for you, if you've a female companion(s)...[:-)] ). The dinner he served was life-saving, we all were dead hungry. By the time the food was served, we'd devoured 6-7 packet of lays and twice that many chocolates. A nice thing happened at the dinner table that needs a mention here.
As already told this guy Ramesh was a bit outspoken. When we told him that we are here to do the so and so trek, he passed an inquiring glance over us and declared "seeing u guys, I say that u can't do it"....wtf!!!, we are coming all the way from delhi just to do this trek and this fellow is saying "u guys can't do it". What do we look like a bunch of couch potatoes ?? huh!!, i felt like giving him the finger. But soon he sortta mellowed down and told that this is a difficult trek to do in a single day. We asked him to arrange two guides for us and decided to leave early morning, by 8AM.
Our first fault--we didn't leave base on time. We left kausani around 9, reached the actual base(the place from where the trek starts) Kaatli by 9:25 and started the trek by 9:30. If you wanna do this in a single day, take my word, start trekking by sunrise, it is a big and arduous trek, takes a lot of time and energy.
The trek started with a comfortable terrain, I thought this is what we won't be able to do ??, huh bring me some real trek!!!!!!. With me and Negi leading the way alongwith one of the guides we reached our first stop--Rudra-dari in about 1:30-2 hrs. This is basically a Shiva temple, one of the two places on the way to Bura Pinnath(BP) where u can get water for ur journey up. There is no source of water at Bura Pinnath, it is available 12 kms down from there, sounds cool for a trek na???. After a round or two of Polo and Chocolates we resumed lap two of our quest.
This lap, from Rudradari to Jawaan Pinnath(JP) was a lot more difficult and energy sapping. The distance covered during the two laps is nearly same(silghtly more in the second), but the altitude keeps on rising and it rises quite steeply, so one nearly takes twice the time to reach Jawaan Pinnath and to tell you what, till Jawaan Pinnath we'd not even caught a glimpse of Bura Pinnath!!!!!!!!!! But somehow we reached JP. "ab samajh aa raha tha, kee log kyon bol rahe the kee ek din mein nahin karpaoge" we took a long halt at JP, recharged our batteries by having pooris, chaach, kurkure's and Lays and enjoying the cool breeze(surprisingly and thankfully it was not at all hot that day). The view from JP was exhilarating. From JP we caught a first glimpse of our final destination--BP, what the hell, it was easily at twice the altitude from where we're standing, and distance, who cares, when one knows how much incline one has to ascent. The guide advised Mandir to return with bahadur(the other guide) but Mandir was not in a mood to give up(already para-gliding nahin kar paya tha bechara). After about an hour or so we began the third and final lap of the way up, JP to BP.
If we had thought that way from Rudradari to JP was difficult and it couldn't get any tougher, then we're definitely wrong. What we'd covered was nothing in terms of difficulty. The climb up from JP to BP was a wicked one, rising at nearly 70-75 degrees at quite a few places, and dry leaves littered all over were making the terrain all the more difficult to negotiate. It was purely adrenalin and the desire to do, that was fuelling us. I, Negi and Pathak, accompanied by one of our guides were leading the proceedings in this lap(through I led, throughout the climb up :-) ). We're totally exhausted, taking stops after every 20 mins or so. But, eventually we did reach our destination--BURA PINNATH. Who was saying that I won't be able to do it???? Pinnath means Shiva's temple. There is a well kept temple at the top, no pujari though. Every year disciples come here to get God's blessings.
It was already 4:15PM by the time we reached BP. We started the trek down(we're taking a different way down) around 5PM, only 1:30 hrs of day light left. We knew it would not be a comfortable trek down. People say that trekking is the ultimate test of perseverance, resistance and patience. I didn't believe it till this trek. On the way down it was already dark, still a lot of distance left to be covered, in between even the guides sortta got confused(you see, these people are not used to travelling at night, it is clearly dangerous, there is no proper way, one has to make his own way through the woods, and the trail is not visible in dark!!!, yes we had very poor quality torches, afterall we never planned to trek in the dark). So my point here is, on the way down(under the circumstances just mentioned) some guys started losing their temper, quarelling with guide, cursing themselves as to why did they opt for this trek in first place??? It was then that I realised the truth of the statement(that people say about trekking).
Eventually somehow after trekking 30-35 kms and for about 13 hrs we reached our base(kaatali) where our cab was waiting for us. Ramesh(the hotel owner) had himself come to pick us up, even they were getting worried for us. Looking into Ramesh Cahudhary's eyes's then I felt satisfaction, for I found a respect for me in those eyes. He was the person who said that we won't be able to do it. A mouth watering chicken curry was waiting (at the hotel) to be devoured by us. I don't know how much I ate that day, what I know is that, I nearly ate 3 times my stomach!!!!!!!!!
Next day we all woke up lazily, pain in the muscles was only starting to manifest itself. But no pain in the world can take away the fun we(atleast I had loads of it) had while trekking, or diminish the sense of self accomplishment at the end of it. It'll always be with us. (sorry for being philosophical)
I'm exhausted writing a log of this trek :-) . So, to summarise we left for delhi around 12 in the afternoon(sunday), had some fun by the side of a rivulet on the way back, were gifted to see a breath-taking view of paady farming, and reached Delhi by 5 on Monday morning.
The album for the trek pics is :-
http://picasaweb.google.com/prakhar.sharma/KausaniBaseTrek
Note:-
If you wanna do this trek or visit kausani, then here are some numbers that might be helpful:-
http://gov.ua.nic.in/uttaranchaltourism/districts/almora/Almora_trek.html#kausani
Ramesh Chaudhary(the guy in whose hotel we stayed, very helpful chap)- 09411328704, 09997557752
Toursit Rest House(this is a government guest house, so better facilities) - 05962258006
For more info feel free to contact me.
