Nandi Kund - Ghiya Vinayak Pass Trek

Get ready to take the scenic mountainous drive to Ransi on the famous pilgrimage route of Madhyamaheshwar. The drive is very interesting and offers you a display of various colours of the Himalayan State of Uttrakhand. 

Stop by in between to have your breakfast and lunch before you reach Ransi, the starting point of the trek

Today is the starting day of our Nandi Kund - Ghiya Vinayak Pass Trek. We head towards Bantoli from Ransi and its a very scenic trek. The village and religious life of the high altitude villages of Uttrakhand is on display throughout the trek route. Being a popular pilgrimage route, the route is chirpy as well with full of vivid colours and life.

The trek is more or less easier getting steeper at times. We get enough option to have our lunch and little snacks enroute Bantoli. Gaundhar is a point we come across on the route very near to Bantoli on the Nandi Kund - Ghiya Vinayak Pass Trek. It is here where the Madhyamaheshwar Ganga and Markanda Ganga meets, with a lovely looking small bridge over it. Little more on the route and we reach Bantoli, our halt for the night.

We have quite a few options to settle in one of the homestays on offer. If not, we pitch our small tents somewhere. Hot dinner awaits us and with this, the first day of our trek to Nandi Kund and Ghiya Vinayak Pass ends.

We are into the second day into our trek to Nandi Kund and Ghiya Vinayak Pass. Madhyamaheshwar is one of the panch kedars and is one of the popular and highly rated pilgrimage route for the Hindus. The trek route crosses Nanu Chatti just after some time into the trek. It the passes by Maikhamba and Kun Chatti, from where its a good walk for some 3 hours to bring us to the shrine of Madhyamaheshwar.

Post lunch, we go on for a acclimatization walk to Buda Madhyamaheshwar. If lucky, we might catch a glimpse of Chowkhambha in a small water body near Buda Madhyamaheshwar.

Our route for tomorrow to Kachni Khal is visible and inspires enough motivation in us to take the challenge. Post dinner, we wish good night to  each other and get into our cozy sleeping bags.

Today our trek to Nandi Kund takes a drastic change, both in the form of difficulties of the climb, and the solitude of the trail.

After waking up to a lovely morning in the blessed site of Madhyamaheshwar, we get ready to tackle the day's trek. It involves a steep continuous climb to the Kachni Khal marked typically by 2 huge rocks forming a gateway.

An arduous climb of some 4 - 5 hours gets us to the top of Kachni Khal. From here, the trail forks and one goes left towards Kedarnath, other to Panpatia and the route on the right goes towards Nandi Kund. Our campsite is a rocky patch today with great views of Chowkhamba.

Evening, we take a light acclimatization walk to Kachni Khal and return to our campsite

The trek for today leaves behind all signs of civilization and follows an unmarked shepherd's trail to reach Pandavsera. A very efficient local guide is much required here. We trek through bushes and cross the Madhyamaheshwar nala multiple times and pass by few small waterfalls to reach a flat meadow. This is marked as Pandavsera and we camp here for the night, by the stream.

The trail to Nandi Kund from Pandavsera follows the small stream of Madhyamaheshwar Nala emerging out from Nandi Kund. It's a gradual climb that gets steeper at times. The rough terrain presents its own challenges. We cross the Madhyamaheshwar Nala multiple times and then climb up steep for another hour to reach the serene Nandi Kund. The peaceful lake and its tranquil waves take our hearts right away and lower down our energy injecting immense peace in us and give us divine happiness and satisfaction. This is why we travel to the difficult parts of the Himalayas for!The entire view of the surrounding is so beautiful that simpler words which I know fail to do justice to the actual beauty of the place. The peaks of Chowkhamba hovers over the lake. The name of the Lake is derived from Nandi - The name of the Bull which was actually Lord Shiva in disguised avatar hiding away from the Pandavas, who were seeking mercy and moksha (liberation from the cycle of life and death as per the Hindu belief) from Lord Shiva after the war of Kurukshetra. We spend the remaining part of the day relinquishing the beautiful place that we are in with no one around to disturb. No noise, no disturbances from unwanted people around, no mobile, no internet. Just us and Mother Nature in its heavenly best.

Today is the highlight day of our trek as we cross the mighty Ghiya Vinayak Pass to topple over to the other side of the valley. It will be a long tiring day today. We can cut out the chances of bad weather hitting us on this hard terrain by starting the day as early as we can. A steep continuous climb for about 3 hours from Nandi Kund will take us to the top of the mighty Ghiya Vinayak Pass. The views from the top of the Ghiya Vinayak pass is just breathtaking. The coveted peaks of Chowkhamba, Neelkantha and Nanda Devi are visible on a clear day. The glacier table of the Panpatia too is visible from here.Weather permitting, we will spend a good time enjoying the views from the top of the Ghiya Vinayak Pass. After that, we will soon find ourselves negotiating the very steep descend to the lush green valley on the other side of the Ghiya Vinayak pass. It's the beautiful meadow of the Barmna Bugiyal on the other side of the pass. We lose altitude rapidly and in about an hour and a half we reach our designated campsite for the night. It will be a long rewarding day today and we will complete the 2 important missions of this trek - The Serene and Pious Lake Of Nandi Kund and Crossing the Mighty Pass Of Ghiya Vinayak. This being done, the remaining days of the trek are just about taking ourselves back to civilization. The remaining part of the trek still remains very beautiful though, as it passes through some untouched meadows and beautiful villages of the Garhwal Himalayas.

Today's trail is longer, but is much comfortable, easier and is also beautiful with drastic differences to the previous day's terrain. It's all about soft green meadows and a thick cover of conifers and bushes today. The route winds down easily to the Manpai Bugiyal from Barma Bugiyal before descending steeply through the forest following the river Kalpa Ganga - a tributary of the mighty Ganga. From here, it further climbs up to the greens of Bansi Narayan, marked by a small temple.

Today, we continue with the descend similar to yesterday on a track with multiple ups and downs to get us to the beautiful settlement of Urgum. The coveted Kalpeshwar Temple - The Fifth Panch Kedar, is just at a 2 Kilometer distance from here and we will visit and pay our homage to Lord Shiva in the evening. Panch Kedars are a group of 5 temples built by the Pandavas, mythologically believed to be of the Vedic Period, who in later stages of their life devoted their life to Lord Shiva in search of divinity and freedom from the soul.

With this, our beautiful trek to the Nandikund and Ghiya Vinayak pass has ended. What a terrific trek it was !!

Early morning, we drive back to Rishikesh and bring an end to our walking ways! We bid goodbyes with a promise to meet sooner, in the Himalayas with the same spirit but different location !