Preparation:
Well, this trek was not in list. After our DeoTibba trek in June 17,
I visited Thirthan Valley in Oct 17. Amazed with the beauty of the valley,
going up on high altitude in this range was trickling in my mind since then.
When I started collecting information on trek in this region of Himachal, I got
to know about trek in Great Himalayan National Park (Rakhundi Pass). The best
season to go there was September-October. So we had to wait for almost a year
which was absolutely difficult for us. To fill the gap, I looked for a short
Himalayan Trek in Feb-March. This is when we found and decided to trek Nag
Tibba.
Jassi dropped off due to personal reasons. From our PUNE trekking
team, Vivek joined us first time for Himalayan trek. So, the team was me
(Keshaw), Akshay and Vivek. We booked the return tickets from PUNE to Delhi and
Delhi to Dehradun.
Day 1 and 2: 22ndand
23rdFeb 18 (Pune-Delhi-Dehradun-Pantwari) – TRAVEL DAY
In Jan, Vivek had shifted to Bangalore and he had to come to Pune as
our prebooked flight was from PUNE.
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| L to R: Akshay, Vivek and Me (Keshaw), leaving from home |
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| At Airport, ready to fly |
We
left at almost right time from PUNE and reached Delhi at around 9 PM. Dinner
was served in the Air India flight, so we directly went to Metro and boarded
for New Delhi. From New Delhi Railway station, we boarded in Train for Dehradun
and went to sleep.
Train was on schedule and we reached Dehradun at around 5:30 AM.
After getting fresh up in railway waiting room, we went on to Bus stop which is
besides railway station. Direct bus to Nayan Bag was at 8 AM and we wanted to
break our journey to avoid sickness (Learning from Har Ki Dun Trek), so we
booked seats in Dehradun-Masuri bus which was at 7.15 am. Please note that
there are two routes from Dehradun to Masuri, one take you to Library Chowk
(Usually buses going beyond Masuri) and other take you to Picture Palace
(Usually last stop for busses). Cost per person till Masuri was 60 Rs and distance
is around 35 Km from Dehradun to Masuri.
And we boarded in a wrong bus which dropped us on Picture Palace.
When I got down and asked for the bus to Nayan Bag, one old man
said, “Sab Ji aap galat aa gaye” (You came at wrong place). The way he said was
scary and I thought, we did something seriously wrong. I asked how to go to
Library chowk? He said, “Either walk for 2 KM or take a taxi for 5 Km long
way”. Phew… It was not that serious. We preferred to walk as the weather was
awesome and wanted to be little relaxed. On the way to library chowk, we took
breakfast and reached at chowk in around 30 minutes. We enquired about bus to
Nayan Bag but no one was sure about bus timing.
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| Yamuna Near Nayan Bag, taken from bus. |
In 5 minutes, we got a
traveler going to Pantwari Directly. We paid 200/person till Pantwari and
started our comfortable journey at 9:30 AM. Nayan Bag is around 40 KM fromMasuri
and route is beautiful (Provided your Pilot is slow). At around 11 AM we
reached Nayan Bag and driver stayed for lunch. We were expecting to leave Nayan
bag soon but driver waited for a local passenger for 30 minutes and we could
start from Nayan bag at 12:15 PM. Though, it was little frustrating but we
should respect the local guys as they are very polite, helping and running
their business. So, local passengers are important for them. Pantwari was only
15KM from Nayan Bag, route is beautiful and we reached Pantwari before 1.00 PM.
Day 2: 23rdFeb
18 (Pantwari-Base camp)
Pantwari is a small and beautiful village. Food and some stay
options are available here, if coming at evening. Everyone is habitual of
trekkers and offer a warm welcome. They will give you information in detail, if
you will ask. Don’t hesitate; they are simple and loving people so ask for
local culture or any information you need.
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| Starting Point in Pantwari |
Note: There is a small Nag Temple in Pantwari (Not the one trek is named
after it) where you can fill your water bottles. After start of the trek, you
will find many small routes which villagers use to go to their farms. Don’t get
confuse, route goes to left is for a small village, take right route and make
sure the right side valley is always visible to you till Nag Tibba peak. You
will not be lost for sure. Road is also there and if you hire a car, it will
save your around 1 hour difficult trek. I don’t think guide is needed as the
trek route is well defined and populated. So, you can ask for the route in
regular intervals. Water is the biggest problem on this trek. After Pantwari,
there are two more water sources which are very near to starting point. After
the goat village, there are no water sources. So carry plenty of water.
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| Pantwari, when looked back. |
We filled our water bottles (2 lt/head) and started our trek at
around 1:25 PM. Day was sunny, route was very dry and brown without forest for
today’s trek. So, it was getting little difficult and boring. Though, the
village, when looked back was looking beautiful.
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| Take Rest here, a watch tower |
We were crossing the road in every 100-150 meters
trek and soon reached to a point where a small hut is constructed and you can
take a rest. We stayed there for 15 minutes and captured a few snaps. Trek was
almost vertical (Or we might be feeling due to heavy bags we had) but cool air
made this little easy. Soon, we reached to a first water point of the trek and
refilled our bottles. After little more trek, we saw a board showing us the
route to Goat Village and around 4 PM we reached to goat village. This is the
last water option but we had our bottles filled so did not stop here. We were
misguided that water is available at base camp as well. Here we saw a gate
under construction and it was the start of the jungle. Now, we started feeling
like trekking in Himalaya.
When I see that beautiful red flowered tree, I
quickly reminded myself, “Oh, this is Burans. My favorite Himalayan Tree.”
It
reminded me the trek to Har Ki Dun where I had seen it first time.
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| Entering into Dense forest |
This jungle
is full of life. Hundreds of birds were chirping and big Himalayan vultures were hunting so we started capturing
them. Trek was getting more vertical so we decided that we will trek for an
hour and then will camp wherever it is possible. Going through the dense jungle,
we reached to a small meadow at around 5 PM.
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| Base Camp, before Nag Temple |
Considering this a base camp, we pitched our tent and explored the
place. We only three trekkers were there guessing which should be Nag tibba
peak?
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| Base Camp, our tent |
There are plenty
of dry woods available (If no rain) so we collected quickly and started
camp-fire. Akshay brought to us homemade “pooriyan” (deep-fried
bread) and in great hunger, they taste awesome.
Especially, when roasted directly on fire and eating with pickle. After having
awesome dinner and enjoying camp-fire, we gone in our tent for the much needed
rest.
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| Getting Ready for Dinner |
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| Camp fire, after dinner |
When Akshay came out of tent in the morning, he saw only one of my
floaters outside of tent (Yes, I trek in floaters in all Himalayan Treks. Shoes
are high discomfort that I don’t wear even in office. Especially for this trek,
I had bought Crocs floaters a month ago and kind of precious for me). When I
heard this, I came out of tent as it was a big worry for me. All the utensils
were scattered all around and one floater was missing. Seems, there were wild
animals in the night. I started searching for lost floater all around,
especially on wild animal’s treks. After half an hour, I found it around 200
meters from the tent. Phew… it was safe.
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| Maggi Breakfast |
We cooked Maggi in breakfast with the remaining water and assuming water will be available in temple, we started trek at around 8:30 AM, leaving our tent here only. Target was to trek till peak and come back before evening.
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| Ready For the Trek |
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| L to R: Keshaw and Vivek |
When we started trek, we
realized how difficult it would have been if we would have tried yesterday.
Even without bags, our speed was very slow. Trek is under dense forest and
weather was cloudy so we were feeling cold. After one hour or so, rain started
as predicted by weather forecast agencies. It was not continue rain and we were
on our path without any problem. In 2 hours, we reached to Nag Temple and snow
fall started by then but not very heavy.
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| Swarg Rohnini Range from Base camp |
The place is beautiful and Himalayan
ranges were now visible. But, we did not found water here!!!! A big reason to
worry. So, we decided to trek till peak and go back to goat village. That
means, we had to trek whole day without water. We looked at our resources and
found matchstick in medical kit and two steel bottles. We could see snow
patches in left side trail and assumed it would be little more snow upside.
After, 30 minutes, we found a big snow patch. So, we collected snow in our steel
bottles and then started fire.
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| Collecting Snow, Mission "The Water" |
Making water from snow was not easy as we
thought, but somehow manage to collect more than half liter of water from snow
(Though, our bottles got black permanently), enough for the back trek as we did
not feel thrust so far due to weather.
In Next 40 minutes, we came out of jungle and Nag Tibba peak was 50
meters in our right. National Flag along with Religious flags was there which
confirmed that we are reached to our destination. In same time, snow fall
started.
It felt like Nag Tibba Peak was waiting to welcome us. It was
increasing and as we reached on the peak, snow fall was in full flow.
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| Akshay and Vivek, the chilling moment |
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| Turning Green into white |
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| The Panoramic View, from top |
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| At the peak |
Aahhhaa!!!! What could be better than that!! We were seeing the brown patches
getting white and trees getting loaded with snow, in front of our eyes. We
enjoyed the snow fall for an hour and started back trek at around 2PM. Unfortunately,
could see the long ranges from peak due to weather.
Back trek was easy but the
route was disappeared due to snow.
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| Nag Devta Temple |
We went to Temple in return and after
temple, weather again changed. In no time, it was fog everywhere and that too
so dense that we couldn’t see ahead more than five meters. Snowfall was
converted into rain and route became slippery. When we came back, the base camp
was fully occupied with trekkers. Around 40 tents and hundreds of trekkers were
already come.Good that we pitched our tent in corner and little out of the
crowed. Good that we did not come on Saturday.
Vivek was
restless due to water shortage. He insisted us to get water from goat village
which was the nearest source. But, looking at our no-interest, he himself
started down trek. We were appreciating his efforts while resting in tent. In
around two hours, he came back with 3 liters of water and it was dark outside.
Our next target was to cook dinner, but all the woods were wet due to rain and
we had no hope to start fire with them. Akshay, our relationship manager, took
the responsibility of maggi along with soup. He went into a nearby tent where
food was getting cooked for their customers. He talked to them and as expected,
they offered us food, soup water and everything. I love Himalaya for the kind
people.We insisted to cook only our maggi on their gas stove and had a
wonderful dinner with soup.
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| From Base Camp, An Awesome evening. |
Rest of the
night, it was raining, sometimes heavily. Thanks to Vivek’s waterproof tent, we
had a wonderful and comfortable night.
Day 4: 25thFeb
18 (Base camp – Pantwari – Dehradun)
By morning, rain stopped
and we ate whatever left and ready to eat. All trekkers were getting ready to
go up and we were packing our tent to go down. Slop was steep and distance we
knew now, so without hurry, we enjoyed our back trek. Weather was clean today
as on first day, trek was easy and soon we crossed goat village and reached to
the water point. After some rest, when we started again, a local villager
joined us. He gave us the information about the area, importance of nag temple
for locals and his believes, local culture and farming in village. When he
noticed that Vivek is struggling due to knee pain, he offered to take his bag.
When Vivke refused the offer, he insisted and took his bag. We comfortably
completed the remaining trek and when we offered to pay for his service, he
politely denied and moved on his path as we never met. What kind of people they
are? So kind, so polite, we must learn from them, what humanity means.
In Pantwari, we
had wonderful lunch in a small hotel. Not much verity but full lunch for all of
us including curd, a glass of milk and tea for Akshay, only in 240 RS Total. We
got a shared Taxi till Nayan Bag in 50 Rs. Per head. From Nayan Bag, we again
got a Shared Taxi in 130/head. As usual, return journey was hectic, especially
because we got a pilot in our taxi instead of driver. I was already feeling sick
and before Masuri, I vomited. Took little rest and rest of the journey till
Dehradun was as usual. We reached Dehradun by evening and booked a hotel near
station in 1000 RS for all of us. Little walk in the streets followed by a
good, simple dinner and then good night.
Total Trek Cost:
Pre-booked travel cost including Air Fares: 5500 INR per head
From Dehradun to Nag Tibba and Back: 1300 INR Per head. (Including Hotel Charges and dinner in
Dehradun)
Other Route: We also thought to go back from a different route which is from Nag Devta Temple to Devalsari. But it is 14 KM from Temple to Devalsari Village and route is not very common. So we dropped the idea, though we heard it is beautiful and less steep route.
Day 5: 26thFeb
18 (Dehradun - Delhi)
It was Jan Shatabdi
Express we had booked for return journey in morning 5AM. We spent rest of the
time of journey discussing about the trek and next plan, the good and bad,
little politics and society. It was a short journey and reached to Delhi at
11:30 AM. I said bye to Akshay and Vivek, they left for the Airport. Akshay had
a flight to Pune and Vivek had a flight to Bengaluru. I had to stay in Noida
with my wife’s family, my little kid Parth was waiting for me.
PLEASE DO NOT POLLUTE THE PLACE, IT IS BEAUTIFUL AND LET IT BE BEAUTIFUL. PLEASE, PLEASE TAKE BACK YOUR PLASTIC WRAPPERS BACK TO DEHRADUN, DO NOT LITTER PLASTIC THERE.
