Kedarkantha Summit : Our Trekking Journey

====================================
They say that – When the going gets tough the tough gets going..!!

Myself, along with a traveller friend of mine, reached Sankari around 1:00 p.m. on 30th December. Now we had around two and a half days( half of 30th Dec and then two more days 31st December and 1st January ) to complete the summit and reach back to Delhi so that we can join our offices on 2nd January. Within this time we had to complete our Kedarkantha summit. It was a big challenge because generally it takes around 4-5 days to complete this journey. Thinking all this we decided to start our trek and reach Juda Ka Talab on the 30th December itself. We had heavy baggage with us containing our own tents, sleeping bags, clothes and some material for food.

Juda ka Talab is around 4km from Sankari and it normally takes around 4 hours of trekking to reach there from Sankari. But we didnt have that much time as we started at 2:30 p.m. and we had to reach before it gets dark. Without losing hope, we moved quite fast and managed to reach Juda ka Talab in 3 hours i.e. around 5:30 p.m.

One thing to mention is we didnt have any guide to help us and hence we lost our way at a point and wasted around 15 minutes before reaching Juda ka Talab. Anyways it felt great to reach Juda ka talab before dark and the view was really scenic. We pitched our tents and before we could do anything else it was already dark.

We started bonfire and cooked maggi etc as our dinner. We were lucky to meet another group of six youngsters. Everyone had a great time sharing laughters sitting around the bonfire.

After that everyone went to sleep in their tents. We had a huge task ahead of us next morning. We planned to complete the whole summit in one day i.e. 31st December so that we can use 1st Jan to return back to Delhi.

We had around 18kms of trek left to complete our plan and it would have been almost impossible if we carried our heavy baggage with us. I must tell you the whole trek is quite steep and we rarely find a plain area while trekking.

And hence we left our tents and big baggage at Juda ka Talab. We packed small carry bags with necessary items and headed to Kedarkantha base camp. We started quite late at 8:30 a.m. in the morning and reached Kedarkantha Base Camp around 10:00 a.m. There was a canteen near the camp and we had omlette bun etc as we didnt have any breakfast that day.

We could see the peak of mighty mountain Kedarkantha from basecamp and it seemed really very far. After having breakfast we started our summit around 11:00 a.m.

Breathing heavily and with tired legs, but with passion in our hearts we conquered the Kedarkantha Peak at around 12:15 p.m.

We enjoyed the spectacular view of beautiful mountain ranges from the peak. All our tiredness had gone away. The view was really breathtaking.

After spending around half an hour at the peak we headed back. We already had in our mind that we had to climb down to Sankari before dark.

We started our descent trek and took a halt at the Kedarkantha base camp again for tea. After sometime we headed to Juda ka Talab as we left our tents there. We met many trekkers along the way who were on their 5 days schedule.

The trekkers were going to Hargaon and we joined them. Just before reaching Hargaon we turned towards Juda ka Talab. Here also we lost our trail for sometime and wasted around 10-15 minutes. There are no markings in the way and its better to go with a guide.

We reached Juda ka Talab around 3:45 p.m. and after a short rest we unpitched our tent. We packed our bags and finally headed to Sankari at 4:30 p.m. Now it was going to be the most difficult part of our trek as we had to reach Sankari before dark and we again had heavy baggage with us. Also, our legs were tired and my toes started to feel the pain everytime i put my feet on a rock as if the shoes are hitting my toes from inside at every step.

We were half way through around 5:30 p.m. and it started getting darker. We switched on our headtorches and started climbing down fastly, trying to ignore our toes and legs pain. After few more minutes it was totally dark and only two light sources were seen in that dark and dense jungle, i.e. our head torches. We could not hear any sound in the jungle. It was dark and calm. Only two of us were there and it was really scary.

We remembered god and kept descending. At times we thought what if we are not on a right track. What if we lose our way and there is no choice but to spend the night in jungle and that mere thought chilled our spines.

We kept climbing down and suddenly we saw two eyes shining in the dark. It was probably an owl on a limb of a tree. We thought what if it had been a leopard!

We continued for some more time with alertness and patience till we heard a scary screeching sound. We thought it is an animal or a snake and there is no escape this time. We stopped for a while and after sometime we realized it was a damaged water pipe and we were near the village. We continued moving and finally hit the Sankari road at 6:30 p.m. It was so relieving to get rid of those scary thoughts.

We felt really blissful to finally see some lights and vehicles. After walking few steps we found some people as well.

Few more steps and we were delighted to see our driver with the car.

It felt like a great achievement completing that hair-raising 18 kms trek in just one day i.e. 31st of December. The trek had around 7 Kms ascent from Juda ka Talab to the top and 11 kms descent to Sankari.

We made it in 2 days what people generally complete in 4-5 days! It felt awesome.

With all the adventurous memories in our hearts, we headed back to delhi on 31st night itself.

Kedarkantha : Few Statistics 

Sankari 6400 ft to Juda ka Talab 9100 ft ,4km,4hours

Juda ka Talab 9100 ft to Kedarkantha Base 11250 ft,4km,2.5 hours

Kedarkantha Base Camp 11250 ft to Kedarkantha peak 12850 ft,descend to Juda ka talab 9100 ft,6km 6-7 hours

Juda ka Talab 9100 ft to Sankari 6400 ft ,6km,4 hours

==================================

Thanks for reading!

Rohit Raj
Traveller – Runner – Dreamer- Believer
leorohitraj@gmail.com