Kedarkanth holds a place in my trek to do list and decided to summit it solo. I started the journey from Vikasnagar which is at a distance of 166kms from Sankri village. Sankri is a small village from where the trekking route to Kedarkanth Summit starts. I kicked off around 5:30am towards Sankri and it was bit cold. Ride to Sankri was comfortable as roads are in good condition and offers beautiful scenery of hills and villages. Riding continuously for couple of hours I touched Netwad, where I was stopped by forest dept. for registration to enter in Govind Wildlife Santuary and National Park. From Netwad it took half an hour to reach Sankri.
In Sankri had my brunch and word with locals about the trekking route to Kedarkanth. From Sankri summit is at a trekking distance of 9kms and which I decided to cover in two days. On this trekking route there are no shops and accommodation option, so carried my own tent and packed eatables. I started to trek around 11:30am but was stopped by hailstorm and rain. I spent around half an hour waiting under the tree for rain to stop and continued my trek to Juda Ka Talab. The Juda Ka Talab is a small lake at a distance of 4kms from Sankri and campsite for day1. Trail to the lake goes through dense forest with beautiful view of nature and mountains. The trail was bit tiring for me after the ride and with a bag of 8-9kgs on my back. On my way met a local guy, Sandeep who was trekking to Juda Ka Talab and he helped me by carrying my bag in steep portion of the trail. It took 4hrs to reach Juda Ka Talab and where I pitched my camp facing the lake. There was a group who already camped around the lake and Sandeep was their guide. It was around 7 in the evening Sandeep came and invited me to have dinner with their group. After having dinner, I headed to my camp and it started to rain again. It was a cold night and somehow managed to sleep.
Day 2 was the summit day and I decided to summit the peak from Juda Ka Talab and be back by evening. After a cup of coffee I started towards the peak, which is at a distance of 5kms from the lake. Trekking route goes through forest and is not steep till base-campsite. The base-camp for many trekking groups is at 2kms from Juda Ka Talab. From base-camp climb starts getting bit steep and trail was covered with 1-2feet deep snow. It was hard to walk in snow till knees and with the chances of hurting my knees. I made it slowly and followed foot marks of other trekkers to avoid sinking my feet in soft snow. While climbing few moments came when I felt like quitting and head back to camp as snow was getting deeper and climb was getting steeper. But only thing kept me moving was the view from the top. It took 2 hrs from the base-camp to the peak. I was tired,exhausted and all drenched but view from the summit worth all of it. I was lucky as the weather was clear and could have the clear view of Himalayan range like Bandarpunch, Chaukhamba, Black Peak etc. I spent around 45mins on summit and started descending. Descend was easy compared to ascend as I preferred to slide down on snow, which saved my lot of time and effort. On my way back to the lake I met few guides and they invited me for the lunch at base-camp with them. I spent around 2 hrs in base-camp with local guides and relaxed. After spending few hours at base-camp I headed back to Juda Ka Talab. I met few trekkers from Hyderabad who were camping around the lake. We had long chat around campfire and gazed stars. After having my dinner with the group, I headed to sleep as next day was going to be long. I got up early next day and packed my stuff and headed back to Sankri. From Sankri I rode back to Vikasnagar with lots of good memories and experience.
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| Himalayan traffic jam. |
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| Towards Sankri. |
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| Somewhere close to Purola. |
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| Close to Mori. |
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| Trek buddy at Sankri. |
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| Trekking route from Sankri. |
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| On my way to Juda Ka Talab. |
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| Wooden bridge on the way to Juda Ka Talab. |
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| Hut made by shepherds. |
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| Camp at Juda Ka Talab. |
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| Juda Ka Talab. |
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| Star gazing at Juda Ka Talab. |
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| Day 2 towards Kedarkanth summit from Juda Ka Talab. |
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| Peak can be seen and its a long way to go. |
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| Swargarohini Peaks. |
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| Himalayas. |
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| Black Peak at rightmost. |
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| Snow covered trail to summit. |
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| Final ascend to the peak. |
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| Finally peak is not that far, but difficult to climb in deep snow. |
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| View from the Kedakanth Summit. |
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| At summit. |
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| Shrine at summit. |
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| Cairn and Himalayas. |
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| Towards Sankri. |
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| Day3 heading back to Sankri. |
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| Rupin River, Mori. |
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| Heading back. |
