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| Dayara Bugyal after first snowfall |
I have always had a special corner for alpine meadows in my heart and one day while reading about them on the internet I came across a list of the most beautiful high altitude meadows in India and one in particular caught my attention. It was Dayara Bugyal in Uttarakhand. 'Bugyal' stands for 'Meadow' in local Uttarakhand language. For years Dayara Bugyal remained a place unheard of, but places like these never remain hidden. Soon explorers started attempting this trek and they came back with the stories of pristine beauty, virgin meadows and dream landscapes of Greater Himalayas. So I started looking for pictures, blogs, write ups about Dayara Bugyal over the internet. The pictures of unending greens spread out far and wide in the lap of greater Himalayan ranges, clear water bodies strewn across the green meadows and flowers peeking out of the green carpet of grass were mesmerising. It was the night of 23rd Dec'13 and right there and then I picked up my phone and called my dear friend Himanshu Sharma and said, "Dude start packing your bags, we're trekking to Dayara Bugyal this weekend." He had never heard me so excited and thought I was kidding him but once I shared the pictures and the stories of the Bugyal he was equally excited and texted me, "Let's do it."
The next thing I did was, told my wife about it and she was ready too, and the next thing she did was told our common friend Ankit Singh, who also wanted to join and this chain continued and the next thing I realised was that now we were 6 people who will trek to Dayara Bugyal. The next day we booked a cab, packed our bags & tents the following day and started waiting for Thursday the 26th Dec'13, the day we had to leave.
Finally the day arrived and we left Delhi in the evening around 8:30 pm. The route was simple: Delhi-Haridwar-Rishikesh-Uttarkashi-Barsu-Dayara Bugyal.
We reached Barsu, a small village in the Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand which is the base camp for the trek, around 4pm next day. We could have reached early but we took unnecessary breaks on our way.
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| Barsu Village (the base camp for the trek) |
We stopped at the Dayara Resort, one of the few places to stay in Barsu. It was a beautiful property with a beautiful view at the entrance of the village. We quickly ate whatever we had to eat since the lunch time was over at the resort. Being the off season and no guests at the resort, the rations were limited. All of us very tired of the long journey we quickly started to unpack our tents to camp up at the campsite inside the resort (for which one has to pay a small amount) and to our surprise we realised that we had forgotten the 'tent nails' back in Delhi. Finally, we spoke to the property manager and got ourselves the Dormitory at very reasonable rate. It was growing dark and cold so we moved our stuff inside, jumped to beds and off to sleep we all went.
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| Dayara Resort, Barsu (early morning)- pointy Mt. Shrikanth on the extreme left |
Day 1: Barsu to Dayara Bugyal (6-7 kms, over 12,000 ft.)
I got up early the next morning to enjoy the Himalayan landscape from the dormitory and like always, Himalayas did not disappoint me. I woke everyone up, ordered for tea while they all freshened up, gobbled up whatever eatables we had, hired a mule and a porter for excess luggage and cooking and in next one hour we were all packed up and ready to roll. We walked along the a man-made pond in the village and started ascending, after continuously climbing for 45-50 mins. we were able to view Barsu down below with the greater Himalayan landscape at the background. We met few village ladies on the way up and gathered some info about the Bugyal. We were told that we were the first ones to go up since November. The next 3 kms of the trek we covered at a brisk pace munching our energy bars and dry fruits. Dry fruit like Almonds, Cashews and Raisins are a must during winter treks as almonds are rich in fat and since fat burns slowly in your body it gives you more and continuous energy while you trek, raisins are sweet and rich in fructose and glucose giving you instant energy. Anyway, lets go back to the trek again. Due to start of the winter season and temperature dipping down to as low as 4-5 degrees during the night there wasn't much greenery around but as we kept ascending the forest cover slowly started thickening. 3 hours into the trek with only one 10 mins break, our legs started to give up. So we decided to stop and take rest at Barnala, another lush green meadow used as a campsite with a small lake. About 20 mins before Barnala meadows the trail gently slopes down and runs flat for about 10mins and then 10 mins of steep climb takes you to the meadows of Barnala.
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| Approaching Barnala meadows |
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| The steep climb just before reaching Barnala |
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| Barnala meadows |
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| The frozen Barnala Taal |
Barnala is a tree lined meadow and when you enter the meadow to your left there is Barnala taal, a small perennial lake which is usually frozen during winters. We took a break by the lake side for 20 mins and hit the trail again. Dayara Bugyal is on top of the ridge-line seen from Barnala. Once on the trail, you enter the tree line again and the climb gets steeper, but since its well laid out there would not be much difficulty keeping up the pace.
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| Back on the trail after break at Barnala meadows |
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| Hour and a half of steep climb brings you to the end of the tree line and Dayara Bugyal begins to appear. |
As we were approaching Dayara Bugyal, the weather took a turn, the clouds started to appear and it started to grow dark. Thinking of a shed to save ourselves from rain reminded me of the mule and the porter we had hired and we realised that we did not see him or the mule anywhere during the whole trek so far. Worried, we kept on ascending. Since we were not carrying tents, I recalled that the porter had told me if we're lucky enough we will be able to stay in one of the abandoned Gujjar huts. As all of this was going in my mind I saw a carcass lying about 20 mtrs away from me, scared for a moment I thought if this is a predator's kill then surely we are going to have company at the Bugyal, but as got closer I noticed that it was a wild goat's carcass which was absolutely dry and it looked like a predator's kill and a pretty clever one as it had very cleanly eaten up the insides of the goat and left the skin and the fur.
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| The carcass of a wild mountain Goat |
I clicked a couple of picture and moved on only to find another kill lying around a few meters away, this time no flesh and fur, just the skeleton. I started to worry as I was ahead of the rest of the team and was praying that we don't encounter a Himalayan Brown Bear because it usually hunts and eats either before sunrise or later in the afternoons.
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| Skeleton of another kill |
I shouted out to my friends and asked them to hurry up and suddenly I heard a bell ringing somewhere and as I walked for another couple of minutes, I saw a mule grazing and enter the porter we had hired. He was waiting for us by the abandoned Gujjar settlement where we were supposed to spend the night. I took a sigh of relief and started to chat with him until rest of the team came up. Soon they all joined and we started looking out for a clean and safe hut to stay overnight. This place was a cluster of about 7-8 huts all in good condition but dirty. So finally we got what we wanted, a clean hut with ample sleeping space for 7-8 people. We were at a height of around 11,000 ft. but still we could not see any mountains around due to clouds. It was growing cold so the next task was to make fire, so we all head out in different directions too look for dry wood.
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| Gathering dry wood to make fire |
It was pitch dark outside and the temperature was falling by the minute, so we all slipped inside our sleeping bags and went off to sleep praying for clear and sunny weather next morning so that we can view the Himalayan landscape at its best.
I could not sleep properly in the night due to breathlessness and thirst. Could not drink water as it froze in the utensil itself due to low temperature and was too lazy too get up and boil the water. It was 4:00 am and I knew the first light is still an hour and a half away, so I closed my eyes once again and went back to sleep.
Day 2: Dayara Bugyal and back to Barsu
Finally morning arrived and I woke everyone up as I did not want to miss the sunrise. The moment we went out the view was amazing. Sun's first ray kissing the horizon and the mountain tops, the scattered rays in the dark morning sky giving it Orange colour. Looking at the weather which was clear due to the snowfall previous night, I knew that this is just the beginning and we are about to witness the magical spell of Garhwal Himalayas for rest of the day. After having quick tea and leftovers from last night as breakfast we were on the trail to Dayara.
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| The view from our hut at dawn. |
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| Beautiful Bandarpoonch and Kaala Naag peaks as seen from our huts. |
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| Morning chat with my wife |
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| The game called 'Fetching Water' |
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| We had to break open the frozen layer and fill water |
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| Pointy Mt. Shrikanth at the backdrop (middle) |
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| Melting icicles |
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| Shot at the right time! |
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| Approaching Dayara Bugyal |
After a 10-15 mins of mild ascend we reached Dayara Bugyal, the place we were dreaming of since past 5 days, the place which I had only seen in pictures, the place of which people never stopped explaining the beauty. Looking at the thin layer of snow on the trail I could make out that the snowfall previous night was first of the season. Once we reached the Bugyal, the view expanded to 180 degree, on one side we saw Bandarpoonch I, Bandarpoonch II, Kaala Naag, Draupadi ka Danda I-II, other peaks from Gangotri group and on the other Mt. Shrikanth and other unnamed peaks. We were all awestruck looking at the God's beautiful creation. The meadow had no green grass owing to the winter season and had white layer here and there because of the snowfall previous night. We roamed wide and far in the unending Bugyal but still could not have enough.
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| Bandarpoonch massif and hidden behind is Kaala Naag (Black Peak) |
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| Mt. Shrikanth (extreme right) and other unnamed peaks of the Gangotri group of peaks |
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| the 180 degree view of the Garhwal Himalayas from the bugyal. |
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| Bandarpoonch-II peak 20,014 ft.(extreme left), Bandarpoonch-I peak 20,716 ft.(center) and Kaala Naag peak 20,950 ft. (little black peak on the right) |
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| the unending Bugyal |
We stayed at the Bugyal for 2-3 hours, enchanted we did not realise that we had to descend too and leave the same day for Delhi. I reminded everyone of our time limit but nobody cared. I did not blame them as I myself did not want to leave. It felt like heaven to be at a place which was far away from the hustle and bustle of the cities, felt warm to meet people who are unaware of all the modernity and have no worries in their lives. As I was thinking this to myself my friends reminded me of leaving. Not wanting to leave I hurriedly took couple of pictures as I wanted to take back these beautiful landscapes with me to Delhi. Soon we were on the trail back to Barsu. This time the speeds were high as you feel less tired when you are descending. In an hour and a half we were at Barnala meadows and in another couple of hours were back at the Dayara Resort. We thanked our porter for all his help, guidance and his mule of course, paid him the monies. Tired, we ordered for cup of teas and omlettes, lazed around for a while, then in next 20mins we packed our bags and were inside our cab. The time had come to say goodbye to beautiful Garhwal, beautiful Dayara Bugyal and the enchanting Himalayan landscapes. Soon we reached Uttarkashi and after that I don't remember anything as I was deep in sleep most of the way dreaming about my next trek in the Himalayas.
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