42 Snow-Trek

I had been dreaming a snow-trek in the Himalayas for years. This year I made it ! Sadananad (SK) and I planned this trek in Kumaon area - as soon as we hear of some good snowfall there.

We learnt from Weather Forecasts that a Western Disturbance (WD) was going to dump snow all-over Himalayas, above alt: 2500M, around 6-7th Feb 2011.

So we booked our train tickets, accordingly, to arrive in Kathgodam on 8th Feb early morning. Surendra Kamath (Surya), SK's cousin, also decided to join us. So we made a nice three-some group, to fill a "booking taxi" from Kathgodam to Bageshwar; to meet our Guide Debu and his team of Porters, to take us for the trek.

We hired some good "feather" jackets at KMVN- Bageshwar and set off the same day to reach Loharkhet-KMVN by evening of 8th Feb.

Luckily for us, there had been good 3-4 feet of snow fall on 7th night and the regions above 2500M had deep snow at Dhakuri, Chilta and Bajling Dhar.

We didn't face any snowfall while walking. It was mostly sunny during daytime . . . but cold (2*C Min & 15*C Max) weather during the 4-day trek.

On 13th Feb 2011 we got a 'booking' taxi from Bageshwar to Kathgodam (Rs 1400/-) and got the Ranikhet Express at 8:40PM to Delhi. On 14th Feb at 16:45 we got into A.K. Rajdhani at Hazrat Nizamuddin satation and reached Borivali, Mumbai at 9:30AM on 15th Feb 2011.

For a detailed diary and narration of this snow trek, please read the excellent report by Sadanand Kamath in his Wanderlust blog.