Valley of Flowers: Blissful solitude on a crowded trail
[June 2-7, 2008] I love it when things turn out completely different than you expected, but so much better. I had it in my head that my little trek to the Valley of Flowers in northern Uttaranchal state, my own pilgrimage to wildflowers, would be quite a solitary affair unless I could come up with some fellow travelers as happened in Darjeeling. I was concerned that if didn't run into them on the bus or by the time I got to Govind Ghat, I might be forced by prudence to hire a guide just so I wasn't hiking alone 13km up a mountain to the next town, Ghangaria, the jumping off point for the Valley of Flowers.
What I hadn't realized was that the remote, snow-bound lake in the next valley east of Valley of Flowers, Hem Kund, which I knew to be a Sikh holy place, is a really popular Sikh holy place.
I started to get the hint as my bus lurched out of Rishikesh at 5am. We played leap frog (a favourite Indian driving game) up the windy, crumbling mountain roads with dozens, the scores, then hundreds of motorbikes with orange Khalsa flags flying and riders sporting only orange headscarves for protection (must have some advantage over helmets). We passed mad men on bicycles with the tell-tale flags and headscarves and turbans to let us know they intended to do the whole 300km and 1500m elevation gain that way. This was in addition to the thousands of Hindu pilgrims on buses, jeeps, cars and on foot (no really) making their way to Badrinath, source of the Alaknanda River and one of the Char Dham temples, another 30km past Govind Ghat on the highway. The road to Whistler will have nothin' on these yatra roads even during the 2010 Olympics.
Two buses, one break down, one jeep and an unscheduled overnight stop along the way, I finally hit the start of the trail at Govind Ghat at about 10am. Govind Ghat is little more than a 150m strip of hotels, restaurants and Sikh religious souvenir shops that leads you down to a Sikh temple, a gurudwara (run by the temple, offers free accommodation and food to thousands of pilgrims, or any traveler, really) and a suspension footbridge across the Alaknanda River. On the other side is a 2m wide, set-stone path that
snakes its way 13 km (1200m elevation gain) to Ghangaria.
The trail's setting is spectacular, with the glacier-fed Lakshman Ganga River crashing down alongside most of the trail, high mountains and cliff faces on both sides, rising from a lush pastoral setting in the valley to sub-alpine meadows at the top. But it's not your classic walk in the woods. The path is lined with tea, cold drinks and food stalls all the way up. And you have the option of walking the path, riding a pony, being carried in what looks like a modified laundry basket on a porter's back (a popular option for the kids, but I also saw a couple of adults in there as well, larger than their porter), or borne aloft on a palanquin carried by four bearers. That last option costs 10,000 rupees for a round trip to
Hem Kund, three days, 38km total, about $20/day for each bearer. There's also apparently a helicopter option. Given the multi-generational nature of the pilgrimage, all these options were well-used, and seemed to have few problems sharing the trail.
I took the pony option for the upward journey: it's recommended in one of the guidebooks as a way of putting a bit more rupees into the local economy, and the animals did appear better cared for than most I've seen, or at least less bony. And it helped saved some wear and tear on my 60+ year-old knees, save them for the
Valley of Flowers itself.
This was my first time in an exclusively Sikh crowd, and the reception was invariably friendly. There weren't many foreigners on the trail at all, and so I got lots of greetings, 'where you froms' and photo requests - the usual. A slight twist was that when I'd say I was from Canada the information was met by a huge smile and the question "Vancouver? Little Punjab?". Seems everyone has a relative or close friend who has moved there or to Toronto, or is about to move there, or is marrying someone there. I got treated to lots of tea. And in my opinion, there's not enough tolerable toilets on the trail despite my ever-lower standards in that department.
I also had more chats with women than usual. The demographic on this pilgrimage was largely upper middle class Punjabi, and many women spoke English quite well and were keen to talk to me. They all expressed admiration that I'm traveling alone, that Western women were "too too advanced" (I eventually figured out that Punjabis use "too too" to mean "very", so it was a compliment). It seems all their daughters are studying at university, many in North America it seems, and their knowledge and even acceptance of Western ways seemed relatively high. Not that many of them would be keen to have their daughter come back from UBC and announce she was off to travel India alone, admirable courage or not, I'm sure.
Ghangaria (3048m above sea level) is another one-street town, a strip of hotels, dhaba-type restaurants and souvenir shops leading to a large gurudwara (sleeps 5000!) and ending with a line-up of ponies for the trip up or down.
And despite being inaccessible by motor vehicle, save the odd helicopter, it was packed! I found a cheap room for the couple of nights I'd be there, but as a cement hut on the ground floor the cold dampness crept into everything, especially with the afternoon rains. I did this trip with only my day pack, and I found myself wearing everything I'd brought in the evenings. I'd remove the rain jacket to sleep.
But the following morning the sun was out and my first steps past the ponies were greeted by sheer rock faces backed by snow-covered peaks. Spectacular! The pilgrims had been pouring onto the trail since
5:30am and I didn't get going until after 7am, but there was still a steady stream of people walking with me.
For about 500m, anyways. At that point, the trail forked and everyone, and I mean everyone, went right for Hem Kund. I veered left for Valley of Flowers, and the trail almost immediately downgraded from the 2m hiking superhighway to what I'd consider a more usual dirt trail, winding down through bright green trees and fern undergrowth. I could have been on Mt. Doug in Victoria. And I was suddenly on a serene, blissfully solitary walk in the woods.
Not far past the fork I passed an elderly Sikh man shuffling along the trail. After spotting my first wildflowers and having to puzzle out the best way to photograph them, he passed me. We played leap frog like that for at least the first hour, and it wasn't clear who would complete the 3km to Valley of Flowers first. He only had about 30+ years on me and flip-flops to contend with. I had a photography obsession exacerbated by wildflower mania. It was a toss up.
I eventually did leave him in the dust, once I'd snapped at least 10 shots of every flower and could walk by repeats - unless the light was just...so...compellingly...perfect! The "2 hour" walk up to the Valley (at 3658m) across two small snow fields still took me closer to three hours, but it was all so beautiful - the big picture landscape as well as the micro-level flowers - that it was justified. I came across a Sikh couple also making the trek, and a group of men that I later discovered were the work crew maintaining the stone path in the Valley, limiting hiker damage to that one well-laid trail, a group of French hikers, but I doubt I saw more than 15 people the whole time after leaving the main Hem Kund trail. I've posted a photo album mainly of flowers in the Valley. The flower show was not at its height, which is really July and August, but that's also during the monsoon season; I opted for fewer flowers/less rain by doing the trek in early June. But there were already lots of flowers out, which made me happy. Didn't get to see the highlight of the Valley, though, the Himalayan Blue Poppy, which doesn't come out until August.
I had a brief couple of hours in the Valley itself before clouds threatened to make my walk back uncomfortable, so in the early afternoon I started back to Ghangaria. And perfect timing - the clouds burst not long after I made it back to my damp little cave (had to evict a couple of earthworms from the carpet). I spent an afternoon and evening eating and reading, as well as talking cameras with a local guide who gave mine a thorough cleaning while we chatted.
On the walk back down to Govind Ghat the next day, I chatted with lots of folks about their hike to Hem Kund - they got right up into snow at 4300m! One group of young men - I think of them as my Punjabi boy band now, with their head scarves and chunky bling - stuck with me for most of the bottom half of the trail, and insisted they give me a ride back to Rishikesh the next day. They helped get me a free room at the gurudwara, and the next morning we all packed ourselves into their little white car and joined the leap frog game back down the mountains. Two of them had recently married Punjabi girls from Toronto and were in the process of moving there, so lots of practicing of English was in order. We stopped at three, at least, spots where the Sikhs had set up spots for free meals for pilgrims all the way down the mountain roads - they certainly know how to take care of each other. And me.
Thirteen, fourteen hours later I was dropped at the footbridge back to Swarg Ashram in Rishikesh, where my pack and a (dry!) room awaited me. My own wildflower pilgrimage was complete.
