Shrikhand Kailash Pilgrimage (5,500 mt.)

ॐ नमः शिवाय

Would like to share a religious pilgrimage with you all, THE SHRIKHAND MAHADEV KAILASH PILGRIMAGE. Shrikhand kailash is one of the 7 religious mountains, considered sacret in Hindu religion, and is believed that Lord Shiv used to reside on these kailash mountains. Shrikhand Mahadev Kailash is situated at an altitude of 5,500 meters(18,000 ft.) above sea level and the trek is tough not skill wise but considering the altitude, weather and distance



"Old Times" : I have treked the place twice, in year 2000 and 2007. In 2000, things were very different. The trek was not that popular among rest of the world, just locals used to go, and was much more tough taking into consideration few things like: The river used to be crossed by just a single fallen tree over it and no food, not tents, no blankets, no light or sight of any living being for miles. Things have changed drastically now, more awareness among trekkers and devotees of lord shiv. There are now briges over streams, food is available both free and paid, the free service being provided by Shrikhand Seva Dal and shop owners in rampur, but this facility is only for few days in month of July.

The trek starts from Jahu village in Kullu. You can reach there by bus following the route Shimla - Rampur - Nirmand - Bagipul - Jahu. The initial trek is along the river, crossing the apple orchards on jahu village.


After about half hour journey, the steep climb to the devdar forest's start. All you can hear is the scratchy sound of the insect found in devdar's, but it sounds good after a while :) There is a little house built just after the steep climb, place is called Singaada (or something similar). Two storied small shed, with second story just 4 feet high. About 100 or more people may come in that small shed during yatra days, at that time no one sleeps, all sit and just wait for morning, singing bhajans whole night.

After singaad the devdar and rai trees almost cease to exist and their place is taken by beautiful wild flowers, herbs and lush green grass and steep mountains.

Here are few of colorful flowers you can find there:

Climbing all the way to the top you will reach Kalli Gathi, there is a small temple there. After that the steep decent starts, the slope is very steep and rain makes it more worse. Then after about 1/2 hour of downhill slope you will reach another hut, can have tea there and something to eat (if its available). They have to bring wood from quite a distance going down as there are no trees at that place.

After that comes a huge glacier that needs to be crossed, it's size varries depending on the time of journey and snowfall that year. In 2000, we went in August mid and thill then the whole glacier had melted. Below you can see how it looked in 2007:

Finally you reach BHIM DWAR, dwar means cave in local language, earlier when people used to go to shrikhand, they used to stay in this big cave,along with nomads(gaddi's) now only few people know where the cave is, now there are tents, a hut is also build, but its roof is removed when the yatra ends, as they say it snows too much (more then 12-15 feet) at that place and the roof does not stand that much pressure. So the roof is fixed every year duing yatra time.

People generally stay in Bhim Dwar at night and start early morning, the next day. After Bhim Dwar its a steep accent towards NAIN SAROVAR . Nain Sarovar, is a lake, formed by melted water from glaciers, its not too deep, and its a tradition to take bath in this holy lake before visiting Shrikhand ( image taking bath, in chilling icy cold water, nice isn't it :) ).

After Nain Sarovar, its a almost vertical climb till the top. No vegitation, not even herbs..... just big, huge rocks, with a strange pattern as if someone has carved them manually. There is a huge glacier, you can either opt to be adventurous and move/walk on it, or else there is a rocky way (bolder hopping). When i was there in 2000, it was literally rock climbing, the rocks are so huge, and at times it was just by the strenght of hands and balance with legs that one had to climb. Now some work has been done by cutting and filling rocks, so as to make the way more smooth. But still the thinness of air is felt immensely, its hard to breath, capacity of walking reduces and it feels like one is going to faint any moment.

Finally one reaches the top for which all the effort is made, and realizes that it sure is worth an effort. Its a feeling of being on top of the world. This peak is the highest in the region, and if you are lucky enough you may get a view of all the ranges, glaciers, passes around... a view that is beyond words to explain....and the divine feeling of being in the Lap of Lord Shiv

In the end, i hope that Shrikhand does not become one of those picnic spots, that most other religious treks in Himachal have become - comercial and dirty. I would really appriciate if people who visit there just take a little care of the environment also, by keeping the plastic bags/wrappers back in there bags and not destroying the herbs/plants there.

Latest and more Info on Shrikhand can be found here : Shrikhand SevaDal Website

ॐ नमः शिवाय

Cycling Manali - Leh

Would like to share, with you all, my trip from Manali-Leh that we did on bicycle's July'08. We completed the total 485kms from Manali to Leh in 6 Days. I had no bike of my own so I decided to rent a bike from manali, but since one of the member who was coming with us was unable to come so he gave his bike to me. But there are good bikes available with Raju in Manali. We were a group of 6. Out of which 5 were cycling. We had the vehicle support with us (a Tata Sumo). As I and one other guy were late and could not reach Manali in time, we suggested others to start the tour and we will join them at Rohtang (also i personally did not wanted to have a tough beginning ).

Route Detail :

Source: Sentient-Entity

Here is how we went ahead each day :

Day 1: My first day on bike was from Rohtang-Koksar-Sissu. Mostly downhill and little level, but road after Koksar is very rough. We stayed in Triveni resthouse in Sissu and had dal, sabji and roti in dinner.

Day 2: In morning we had bread slice and tea, and we started early around 7am. Places coming in between were Gorpur(or something similar .... sorry :P ),tandi and finally we reached Keylong. I was feeling like the bike is getting heavy. After a check we found that a bolt was missing from the front disk and there was a sort of brake applied to front wheel all the time. So i had to stop back at keylong to get it fixed rest of the crew went ahead. After my bike was fixed i was already about 3-4hrs behind so i decided to put the bike on the support vehicle and moved on to look for others. Road after keylong is very bad, dust and stones. We found one rider just before the decent to Jispa. In the decent we found another rider, but he was in bad condition as he had a small accident. Actually his front wheel had come off while riding ( really lucky he did not get any major injury ), the rim of the wheel was also twisted, don't know what went wrong. So then we reached Darcha, had lunch there and headed to the steep climb and finally reached Patseo. But wait there was Suraj Tal before that..... lovely crystal blue lake, though very small, we did paddle boating there. InPatseo we stayed in a rest house of Avalance Study Center.

Day3: Was tough, and i was not that prepaired so i took a rest that day , but the view of beautiful himalayas starts from Patseo only.... It was straight road it Zing Zing Bar, then steep climb to "Peace restorant", where we got some good road. Then steep climb to suraj tal, finally reaching Baralacha la. Then i had enough sitting in vehicle so i took my bike and paddled to the Sarchu planes..... really awsome view at sarchu... long plains.... easy to cycle.... beautiful skies....

Day4: WE stated from sarchu early morning, beautiful 35kms flat road before reaching Gatta Loops, we(2) covered about 15 of them then were tired so again put the bike on the rescue vehicle, rest of the team was high in spirit and covered Nakella, Lachungla and finally we reached Pang.

Day5: WE started from pang, crossed Moray plains, very dusty, very hot and head winds...... made straight road also very tough.Them came the mighty Tang-Lang-La, there were high head winds and very very tough to even move a little in that condition. We could feel the thinness of air even while walking.... I gave up 14-kms before. So again bike on top of the support vehicle, from Tang-lang-la its all downhill till rumse so back on two wheels :) , we saw many Gompas along the way..... you can feel the peace there..... so quite..... Reached rusme..had the night stay there.

Day 6: Straight drive all the way till Leh.... very hot weather compared to the days before... as we moved from 1750mts to 1400mts and even less.

Wish to complete the tour without support vehicle some time in future....I did not had days left to explore leh (short of holidays).... but i was too much fulfilled with the journey only.... Leh has too much to offer which cannot be covered in a week....

And finally the people of Leh .... you can find all typed of people..... Buddhist, Muslims, Hindu's, Tourists..... local people are very friendly and cheerfull .....

Few pictures from the trip: