Tungnath Trek - The one with snow

Updated: Sep 9, 2020

Climbing up with the fear of falling down..but still making it to the top, makes you believe that you CAN do it, if you do it BY HEART.

And at the end, you feel that you belong there..!!

Trip Duration: 3 Nights and 4 Days (19/04/2019 to 22/04/2019)

Route:Noida-Rishikesh-Devprayag-Makku math-Chopta-Tungnath Trek-Chopta-Makku math-Kotdwar-Noida

Tips & gears before planning : If you wish to visit the Tungnath Temple, plan it when the temple opens after snowfall, which varies with weather every year. Carry some citrus candies, water, something to eat, trekking stick, hiking shoes, cramp-on if trekking in snow, extra pair of socks, extra garbage bags to carry waste, Sunscreen (SPF 50 or more), UV shades, take diamox (for Acute Mountain Sickness) and instant pain relief spray for emergency.

Day 1: Noida to Rishikesh (Distance covered - 230 Kms)

We rented a ZoomCar (Eco sports) and started our trip on 18th April, 2019 at 6:00 PM from Noida to Rishikesh. Had our dinner break at “Namaste Midway” after Khatauli. Entered Rishikesh at around 11:30 PM. We booked our stay enroute at Hotel Green View (near Parmarth Niketan). The main bridge to go across the Ganga remains closed from 11:00PM to 6:00AM, so one can go from “Garud Chatti Bridge”. The hotel was decent and had awesome breakfast.

Day 2: Rishikesh to Chopta (Distance Covered - 200 Kms)

We departed from our hotel after breakfast at 9:30AM and headed towards Chopta through Devprayag, Srinagar and Rudraprayag. It took us around 7hours to cross Rudraprayag due to Char-dham road widening. After Rudraprayag, there are two routes to reach Chopta- one via Ukhimath and another via Makkumath. The Ukhimath route was under construction and its very crowded. So we took another one.

Note: You will find proper sign boards on the route via Makkumath but Google maps didn’t show this route and asked to take a U-turn throughout. Do not get confused or panic as this route is a bit shorter and its too serene as compared to the other one. Recommended.

We reached our stay at Chopta (Chopta Heritage Meadows) by 7:15PM. It was chilling. The caretaker of our camp (Mr. Alok) was very welcoming and friendly. He offered us tea and bread-butter as soon as we reached there. We had the camps booked for two nights with breakfast and dinner included (14k for five people, two camps). There was bonfire and simple dinner. We took a short walk to nearby camps on the same road.

Earlier we planned to head out for trek after breakfast at around 6:00AM. But while walking we met some known people who were gonna start at 3:00AM to witness the sunrise from trek peak. Then and there, we decided to start the trek early (at 3:00AM). So, we headed back to our camps.

Day 3: Tungnath Trek

After 4 hours of sleep we woke up at 3:00AM and drove to starting point of the trek (which was 5kms from our camp). Trek started at 4:00AM.

Four out of five of us were first time trekkers and we heard that Tungnath trek has easy to medium difficulty level. That might be true but surely not at this time, with uncertain weather and snowfall (took place the previous day).

Initial half an hour was easy and fun. We saw small patches of snow and got very excited. We were among the few to start the trek so early. Thereafter, we sat to relax at the first eating joint (which was still closed). We had some candies and dates (we carried). Other people have also started the trek by this time.

Trekking after snowfall is very tricky. The snow from the previous day melts and the water freezes on the stone paved pathway in the form of ice (which becomes extremely slippery during early morning). After walking for some more time, there came a patch with such ice and one after the other, everyone started to slip and fall. There was no railing alongside and it was too scary. Some people from another group, who wore hiking shoes, crossed that stretch somehow and started helping us. It was nearly impossible to stand up again on our feet, so after a lot of efforts we crawled the slippery patch.

A few people panicked after this incident and decided to return back. I won’t deny that this thought crossed my mind too. But, somehow we managed to gather our courage and move forward. There came a similar problematic stretch with frozen ice and this time it was too long to cover on knees, hence we decided to climb the hill between that path. It was tough but adventurous. The fresh snow and deeply rooted shrubs helped us a lot. Finally we crossed the whole icy stretch and halted for a tea break.

And here comes the full-on snow trek…!

While having tea, we could see the snowy path we were going to cover, without any railings, no hiking shoes and no cramp-on. Then we noticed that the guy who served us tea, had rope tied on his shoes and was walking quite comfortably (other factor was that he was used to such paths). But, yeah, he told us to wear our socks above the shoes to improve grip and we did the same (that turned out to be a better option).

We started again, walking very slowly and tilting our bodies away from valley and trying to find foot-grooves on every step. After many short walks and halts, we reached a comparatively flatter area from where the temple can be seen on the right. But it was one more hill-up (which was the steepest of all we came through) and now we had to cover that. Surprisingly, that came out to be easier due to a number of grooves and fresh snow and we enjoyed climbing it.

We were quite happy and exhausted on reaching temple arena and sat on one of the stone carved railing, ate whatever we carried and played a lot with snow. We decided not go forward to Chandrashila (trek beyond Tungnath) due to lack of proper gears (as it was more difficult).

We did this trek on April,19th and so the temple was closed due to snow (we could only see Nandi ji and a part of temple above gate). The view from this place was very serene but we decided to start trekking back after an hour of rest due to cloudy weather (as it will be more difficult to cover a slippery trek downwards). Until now, we started feeling like a pro-snow-trekker and started sliding down on it. It was so much fun rolling on it that we didn’t want to come back. There were too many people climbing up the trek at this time and it became difficult to descend while crossing them safely. We heard that a woman slipped into the valley and also saw a guy tripping off (but someone saved him by grabbing his jacket). We had to walk up and down the path every time to avoid crowd.

After covering the snow patch, we came across the ice one we avoided by climbing up a hill, but going down the same way would be too dangerous. So, we walked ahead and saw that people were stuck on that ice patch from both the sides. Then we saw a connecting hill covered with snow and some people were standing at the bottom of that. We decided to roll down the snow and requested them to stop us if somehow we couldn’t manage to stop ourselves. One by one we started rolling down and many others followed us to avoid that traffic.

After coming down we found that there was no more snow or ice and we can walk comfortably. Also we saw so many pink rhododendron trees (which were not visible when we started) which made the path more beautiful. Later it started to rain, but we continued to walk down the trek and reached the starting point at around 3:00 PM. There we had stuffed parathas at a nearby eating joint and came back to our camps. We were too exhausted to do anything else and went straight to bed and slept.

When we got up in the evening, there was bonfire lit outside. We had tea and dinner later. We also asked our caretaker to prepare breakfast early next morning, as we planned to leave for back home.

Day 4: Chopta to Noida

We departed at around 7:00 AM after having breakfast and took the same road via Makku. Due to traffic and construction we decided to follow Pauri-Kotdwar route rather than Rishikesh one. You will find a sign-board at the diversion for Pauri. That route had very less traffic and road was in very good condition at that time. We reached Bijnor at 6:00 PM and took a break at a friend’s home (who was travelling with us) and reached back to Noida at around 11:00 PM.