Itenerary ... I Altitude Graph ... I Other Inputs ... I Himalaya Trek Planner... I

Finally found the time and the group to go to “the place where the gods live” – Himalayas. I had planned to go there earlier in April. But that did not work out due to a small road accident and sustained injuries thereof.

Barely 4 weeks back from today me and my friends told me of their intent to go to the Himalayas. This quickly materialized into a plan. Now when I look back, I find that a lot of searching and planning has gone into it since then. So, I thought putting it up on the net through a personal blog might be useful in case others are planning for the same.

Now coming back to the planning, I found that a lot has been written on the Himalayas, so much so that, you will be lost in the loads of information available in books, internet and individual blogs. As one spends more time on it one can get detailed info, to the extent of gradient, latitude-longitude etc. With google maps you can get a good enuf map, and with google earth a 3D image of the valley as well :o ( I have not tried it though).

We initially had planned for a trek in the gharwal and kumaon region as there are a number of treks in this area. The trek we initially shortlist was DODI TAL-YAMUNOTRI. But soon we found out that the region will be witnessing heavy monsoon showers. So, the idea to take this route was promptly dropped and the search for a new trek route devoid of monsoon showers began.

One good place to search for treks in Himalayas is lonely planet. The maps given in the book are pretty detailed. And, I guess, you will not get maps in greater detail than that, for those hilly regions in India. Once you have finalized a trek, it will not be difficult to find out the gradient of most of the places.

Apart from this there are many discussion forum and email groups where you will find many people willing to help. I personally subscribed to himalaya_trekkers@yahoogroups.com and indiamike.com
(for the trekkers India Travel Forum - Trekking and Mountaineering section).

With further inputs from friends and my roommate and lonely planet, the trek we finally short listed was BATAL- CHANDRATAL - BARALACHA LA trek in the lahual range. This trek is outside the influence of monsoon rains and good time to take this trek is July to mid-October.

You will find that as you traverse through gharwal -> kumau -> himachal -> ladakh -> zanskar –> ladakh, the rain gets meager and meager. Ladakh happens to be the rain shadow area of himalayas (average rainfall seldom exceeding 50 mm).After finalizing the trek route, an itinerary was made for the 9 full days we had for the trek. After reasonably planning our itinerary with altitude graph and all, I published it in yahogroups. I got excellent feedback on our itinerary. The suggestions were promptly included in the itinerary. One major concern in our itinerary was the altitude climb. We had to climb gradually after spending enough time at a certain level above msl for proper acclimatization.

Next thing to plan was - the things we should carry. Arranging for things for a cold place on a high altitude in a hot&humid city like chennai was definitely not easy. Even a rucksack was difficult to find in Chennai. But I finally did got one in Chennai with the help of friends and forum. Then we made a huge list of the things we should carry. I have listed down the things to carry for the trek in the trekking planner excel. The idea was to carry minimal weight (10-12 kgs).

In a few days we were ready with all the things in the list and a solid plan for the trek. Then came the most difficult part of the time prior to the trek – waiting for the trek. Just a day or 2 more to go but each day looked so long …