Gangotri

Date: 05-Oct-2024

Day 0: Dehradun to Gangotri 

Distance/Time: 233km (11H)

Story of a River

According to Hindu mythology, King Sagara once performed a Ashwamedha Yaga. As per this tradition, a horse is left to wander for one year. The land it covers becomes that of the king, unless challenged by the settlers. However, in this case, the horse was stolen by Lord Indra. Learning the disappearance of the horse, the King sent his sixty thousand sons on a search mission. They eventually found the horse at the ashram of sage Kapila. Assuming that the sage had stolen it, they interrupted his deep meditation. This infuriated the sage and he, with is ascetic’s gaze, burnt the sons of King Sagar to ashes. 

Devastated by what had conspired, King Sagara sent his grandson Amshuman to ask sage Kapila what could be done to bring deliverance to the souls of his sons. The sage advised that only the water of River Ganga, which flowed from the heaven, could liberate their souls. 

Bhagiratha, Amshuman’s grandson, undertook ascetic practices and seeked the blessings of Brahma and Shiva. Impressed by his devotion, Brahma allowed the goddess Ganga to descend upon the earth. However they were faced with a challenge - her force would shatter the earth. Therefore, Shiva broke Ganga’s fall in the coils of his hair. 

When Ganga descended down to earth, Bhagiratha took her through the mountains, foothills, the plains and the sea where she liberated the sons of King Sagara. The source stream to the Ganges is named after sage Bhagiratha for his role in the descent of Ganga from the heavens to the earth. 

Nature and its beauty have always bloomed creativity in man. Such creativity has led to the personification of nature and eventually, their worshiping. Temples have been constructed for these forms of nature and umpteen rites and rituals have been set around these myths. Today, all that remains are those traditions and rituals. People are consumed by fancy customs and remain blind to the intent of respecting nature. 

Gaumukh Tapovan trek, a trek to the source of one of the head streams of River Ganga, therefore became a transformational one for me. Before I began the trek, I asked myself - Should I look at the river as a Goddess and follow the myth or should I trace the river to its source, in order to understand this force of nature? Only when we ask questions, can we decide over a path.  While many take up this journey for religious reasons, I travel as a rationalist, and for the love of nature. I hope my reasons are not less fashionable. 

The first time that I had heard about Gaumukh Tapovan trek was while I was retuning back from my very first Himalayan trek (Ali Bedni). I was on a flight and the man sitting next to me was talking to a woman beside him and showing her the pictures of the trek that he had just been to. The images of Mount Shivling captured my attention and I decided that someday, I would go there. 

Though I had booked Kedartal this time, there were not enough registrations for the trek and therefore, I shifted to Gaumukh Tapovan Trek. My friend Divyesh decided to join me too.

On the 4th of October, I took a flight from Bangalore to Dehradun. From the airport, I took a taxi to the city where Divyesh had booked a hotel. He had taken a train from Ahmedabad to Dehradun earlier that day. I was happy to see my dear friend after almost 1.5 years. 

Hotel Paras Tower is located at a distance of 1.5km from ISBT (Bus station) where we were supposed to meet-up with other trekkers the next morning. Divyesh had brought me some wheat Bhakri which I immediately opened and ate. We then took a shared auto rickshaw to Paltan Bazaar. From there, we walked to the Buffet shop. I had visited this place last time in 2021. Their cold coffee and burgers are delicious. However, I noticed that the crowd there had reduced considerably. 

After some more walking, we headed back to the hotel and retired for the day. In the morning, I took a short walk to find some tea. At 7:00AM, we met the other trekkers in front of ISBT. This was a group of 11 trekkers. 

We all had to wait for Shushrut who was running late. He was taking a bus from Delhi and was dropped off at a different location. Shushrut is a 22 year old engineer from Mumbai. Nidhi too is from Mumbai. She is a practising lawyer. Ankush is an IT professional who lives in Dehradun. Aseem is from Delhi and works for RBI. Mayank is 22 year old law student from Raipur, Chhattisgarh. Shaily is an influencer/Content creator from Bikaner, but lives in Delhi. Sandeep and his wife Kasturi had come from Bangalore. Finally, there was the oldest member of the group - Manjul ma’am from Delhi. She works at LIC. At 52, she is all energetic and wishes to cover as many Himalayan treks as possible. This was an interesting mix of trekkers. More about them as we go along. 

We left Dehradun at around 7:30AM on a tempo traveller. As soon as we descended from Mussoorie and made our way towards Uttarkashi, we saw the Bhagirathi River. We stopped for lunch near Uttarkashi and then made another quick stop to buy freshly harvested apples. The apple that costs Rs150-200 per kg in Bangalore were priced at just Rs50. 

By the time we reached Gangotri it was dark. It had taken us 11 long hours to reach there. Our trek leads Pachu and Shivahul guided us to hotel Mandakini. We passed through the main temple street that was packed with shops selling dry fruits, metal artefacts, plastic cans to fill the river water and clothes on either sides. 

We freshened up and headed to Hotel Krishna palace for dinner.  After dinner, Aseem and I took a walk till the Gangotri temple and the Ghat. 

Our Trek leads requested us to gather in a room and we all got formally introduced. Shivahul is from Mussoorie and Pachu is from Karkala. During the introduction, we learnt that Manjul ma'am has been doing back-to-back treks ever since she began Himalayan treks a few years ago. She had just done Bali pass a few weeks ago and here she was on another trek. After the briefing, we went straight to bed. A long day thus came to an end and another awaited on the other side. 

CONTINUED HERE: Gaumukh Tapovan Trek - Day 01