Kedarkantha Trek is one of the most beautiful treks to do in winters as well as in Summers. One gets to experience a full 360 degrees view of the Himalayas. A trek that offers some amazing views in the day and through nights, sliding on soft snow, and a sense of accomplishing a summit at 12, 500 feet. This trek is perfect for someone who wants experience trekking in the Himalayas.
Kedarkantha Trek is part of the Garhwal Himalayas. This is a trek of 18kms in total with gradual ascends and descends. As per the local folklore, the Kedarkantha summit was the spot where lord Shiva had meditated for a long time. As he was leaving this place, he left his “Kantha-haar” meaning “zevar from the throat” at the spot. As of today, the Kantha-haar is no longer there. The locals state that their ancestors had replaced it with a Trishul (Trident) which can still be found at the summit.
Kareri Lake Trek, Brhamatal Trek, Valley of Flowers Trek or Nag Tibba Trek are some more treks that are suggested for beginners.
NEW DELHI
3 Hours Before Flight Time
Reach the Dehradun railway station by 6.30am and assemble. Freshen-up and have a cup of hot tea outside the railway station. Start the drive from Dehradun railway station by 7am. Halt for breakfast at Kempty falls if coming from Mussorie route. If coming from Vikasnagar, halt at Vikasnagar for breakfast. Have lunch at purola around 1pm and continue the drive for Sankri. Reach Sankri by 5pm and meet up with team Wanderers. Have short briefing about the trek and call it a day.
After a good night sleep to recover from the long drive, today we start our day early. We start by 8.00am from Sankri. We walk along the road for 15mins and take the trail starting from the right. We start the ascend from here. It starts with the cemented zig-zag trail and leads to a route with stones. We cross a cement bridge after an hour of the trek and rest for bit. After filling water from here we continue to walk. Another hour of ascend and we reach a clearing where we halt for lunch. After lunch we continue the climb for about an hour and reach a second clearing. Right above this clearing is the Juda ka Talaab campsite. We trek for another 15mins to reach the campsite for the day. We do some cool down session and enjoy the rest of the day.
As per the locals, there is a reason for the name Juda ka talaab. “Juda’ in Hindi means joined, and “talaab” in Hindi means lake. If the locals are to be believed, this lake is connected with another water body slightly away from the campsite. Therefore, the name “Juda ka Talaab.”
We start at about 9am from Juda ka talaab. Right after crossing the lake towards our left we take the trail above it. This trail leads us straight to the Kedarkantha base. This is going to be an ascend through dense forests and clearings. In January, due to the fresh snow we would be making the route with our own steps. It will be exciting and fun to do this however will be a little exerting when compared to walking without snow. For anyone who has not witnessed or experienced trekking in snow, this would be a wonderful experience. After a steep ascend for about 45mins to an hour, we take the trail towards the right. This trail then leads us to a couple of clearings. Depending upon the snow conditions, we take a call to proceed to the Kedarkantha base Taalkhetra, or to camp at the clearing before the actual base location. Other than the snow conditions, we also need to consider the availability of water. Due to excessive snow, the water source is hard to find at the base, so we camp at the clearing instead. We can see the Kedarkantha Summit right in front of us. We stretch with the cool down exercises for the day and rest well. Over soup we discuss the plan for the following day, “The summit day” and start with our packing accordingly. We have an early dinner and sleep.
Today we have to start very early. We aim at starting the trek by 6am. We start by ascending into the forest. Today’s trail has a couple of clearings and a few patches where we need to cross carefully. As we start early in the morning, the soft snow would be hard ice at some patches and we’ll need to negotiate those patches very carefully.
Kedarkantha Trekking Tour
We reach the Kedarkantha Summit by 8.30am. After spending 20 mins and enjoying the breath taking 360 degrees Himalayan views we start to descend. By now the sun would have made the snow good to slide. We will then look for options to slide down and enjoy sliding our way back to the Kedarkantha base. On reaching the base, have lunch by noon and start packing. After a short gap of lunch we start our descend to Hargaon and reach by 5pm. We enjoy a hot serving of soup with an early dinner and sleep.
We start the day as early as possible to make it to Sankri by afternoon. We start to descend to Sankri by 7am. We trek through the forests once again to get down to the cement bridge we had crossed on our trek from Sankri to Juda Ka Talab (JKT). From this cemented bridge, we follow the same trail that gets down to Sankri. We have lunch at Sankri post our return.
We start the day at ease at around 9am to make it to Dehradun by 6 pm. We can then to proceed to the bus stand or the railway station.
