Deoriatal Chandrashila Trek

Written By Ved Mohta (Grade 3)

I went to the Deoriatal Chandrashila trek organized by Indiahikes this summer. This was a family trek in which kids could also join. We had been trying to go on this trek for the last 2 years. However, we had to postpone our plans due to Covid 19. While there were challenges, we didn’t want to miss this time. We took a train from New Delhi to Haridwar. We had to first reach Rishikesh. There was so much traffic between Haridwar and Rishikesh that no taxi wanted to go. We boarded another train at Haridwar to reach Rishikesh. We still had to walk nearly 5 kms to the hotel because of the massive traffic in Rishikesh. 

The next day, we had to go to a place called Sari near Kedarnath in Uttarakhand. The trek was to start from there. I also met some kids my age. We learnt how to pack our bags, how to do a ranger roll of pants and t-shirt, how to use a sleeping bag and how to use a tent on the trek. 

On day 1 of the trek, we talked about agreements that would make our trek efficient. These agreements were called TEA (trek experience agreements). Then we did our warm-up and started trekking. We first had to cross a mountain next to our campsite. We took breaks as we went along. After some time, we could see white Chaukhamba peaks. Once we reached Deoriatal lake we rested there after the long journey. Then, at the Deoriatal campsite, we did cooldown exercises and went to rest in our tents. 

On day 2 of the trek, we had our tea and ate breakfast and then headed for Rohini Bugyal (a bugyal is a high-altitude meadow). This was the longest day of the trek and thus we tried to take a lesser number of breaks to reach our destination quickly. We first stopped at Jhandi top, one of the high points which had a flag. The trail after the Jhandi top was beautiful because there were many big trees and we kept going till we reached Rohini Bugyal. At Rohini Bugyal, we had our lunch and drank tomato soup. Then we rested for some time. Once we reached Syalmi campsite we went to stay in proper tents (the smaller ones). Almost everyone’s feet were paining after the steep descend from Rohini Bugyal. It was still a lot of fun. 

Day 3 was a watery day. We crossed the Akash Kamini River and many smaller streams. We also filled water from them which was a lot of fun. Again, we had lunch and drank sweet corn soup on our way and then headed for the roadside forest Baniyakund campsite. The next day was the summit day. 

On day 4, we started at 3 am. We all had ‘dallia’ for energy and saw the sun rise with its rays falling on Kedardome, a snow cap mountain with the Kedarnath peak next to it and Chaukhamba on the side. We trekked up to Tungnath temple and rested there for some time before covering the last 1 km up to Chandrashila peak. Chandrashila’s altitude is 12085 feet. The view from Chandrashila was amazing with all the snow cap mountains visible. But we couldn’t see the highest peak in India, Nanda Devi because of the clouds. We had an exciting day and enjoyed it a lot. 

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