The first plan we made it during the rains of 2008. But it just didn't happen that year, and the years that followed till August 3 this year. The early morning mist still engulfed the valley of Ghangaria where we stayed put at a dormitory run by the Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam. The day before, around 2.40pm, i was the first to reach Ghangaria after a gruelling 15km trek from Govindghat, where we camped just for a few hours after starting from Josimath around 7am. Govindghat is an important transit point for pilgrims to Hemkund Sahib, a holy place for the Sikh community, and also for nature-lovers like us who were dying to visit the Valley of Flowers.
A valley that comes second to not another in the Himalayas was chance-discovered in 1931 by a group of British mountaineers. After 70 years when we visited the Valley, it was a more organized trek with the government ready to support the enthusiasts. Surprisingly, 95% of travellers who found accommodation at hotels and guesthouses of the tiny hamlet of Ghangaria were bound for Hemkund Sahib. Only a few armed with macro lens had got up early, battled mule-dung for some time to hit the road spiralling through the forest that leads to Valley of Flowers National Park.
We were no exception. Being in a profession that demands glued to the screen till late in the night, waking up early is a torture and if that happens at a place where the mercury even hardly touched the 8-degree mark around 4am in August, it becomes simply unbearable. And, Rajesh was adept in it. The night before, i told all of my teammates not to push and shove me till everyone was ready except buckling their shoes as i need only 10 minutes to make myself prepared after leaving the bed. As my friends were more than paying any heed to me, i had no option but to join them on our much-awaited trek to the Valley.
For me, reaching the Valley as fast as possible was the only goal then because the first sun ray was important for taking pictures. My experience in the Hills told me of a bright morning ahead even as there was much rainfall the night before. And sunny it was! I was soon joined by Kunal, who was not only a master trekker but had come to the Valley once in 2004. Kunal told me he had not found so many varieties of flowers during his earlier visit, and moreover, they were greeted with heavy rain also. Saugata, our another teammate and who had accompanied Kunal in 2004 also, seconded him but not before i clicked some amazing pictures of colourful flowers of the Valley. Suddenly, within 15 minutes after reaching the Valley, it was cloud all over the hills where visibility dropped to zero for some time. Obviously, we did not expect the snow-capped peaks would create a scenic background to the lush green hills with yellow-mauve-pink-red-white-blue flowers dotting the kilometres-long Valley, but we did not imagine it can be so cloudy that even taking macro-mode pictures would be near impossible.
What took the cake besides capturing hundreds of frames at the Valley was the breakfast there. We packed our stuff — simple one with aloo-paratha and aloo-jeera — at the GMVN trekking resthouse to enjoy it at the lap of nature. And, water was aplenty: fresh mineral water directly from the melting glacier that we could see from the Valley. The best part of our trek was that only at Valley of Flowers we were not disturbed by the fleet of mules rather we could feel nature at its best. Serenity was redefined at the Valley where silence was only occasionally broken by sun-birds and flower-peckers. Bees, as we found, were literally busy-bees oblivion to shutterbugs like us! When we were coming back, i made a resolution to revisit the Valley, maybe like Margaret Legge, who died in a freak accident there in 1939, as embracing death amidst Nature is unique, too!
A valley that comes second to not another in the Himalayas was chance-discovered in 1931 by a group of British mountaineers. After 70 years when we visited the Valley, it was a more organized trek with the government ready to support the enthusiasts. Surprisingly, 95% of travellers who found accommodation at hotels and guesthouses of the tiny hamlet of Ghangaria were bound for Hemkund Sahib. Only a few armed with macro lens had got up early, battled mule-dung for some time to hit the road spiralling through the forest that leads to Valley of Flowers National Park.
We were no exception. Being in a profession that demands glued to the screen till late in the night, waking up early is a torture and if that happens at a place where the mercury even hardly touched the 8-degree mark around 4am in August, it becomes simply unbearable. And, Rajesh was adept in it. The night before, i told all of my teammates not to push and shove me till everyone was ready except buckling their shoes as i need only 10 minutes to make myself prepared after leaving the bed. As my friends were more than paying any heed to me, i had no option but to join them on our much-awaited trek to the Valley.
For me, reaching the Valley as fast as possible was the only goal then because the first sun ray was important for taking pictures. My experience in the Hills told me of a bright morning ahead even as there was much rainfall the night before. And sunny it was! I was soon joined by Kunal, who was not only a master trekker but had come to the Valley once in 2004. Kunal told me he had not found so many varieties of flowers during his earlier visit, and moreover, they were greeted with heavy rain also. Saugata, our another teammate and who had accompanied Kunal in 2004 also, seconded him but not before i clicked some amazing pictures of colourful flowers of the Valley. Suddenly, within 15 minutes after reaching the Valley, it was cloud all over the hills where visibility dropped to zero for some time. Obviously, we did not expect the snow-capped peaks would create a scenic background to the lush green hills with yellow-mauve-pink-red-white-blue flowers dotting the kilometres-long Valley, but we did not imagine it can be so cloudy that even taking macro-mode pictures would be near impossible.
What took the cake besides capturing hundreds of frames at the Valley was the breakfast there. We packed our stuff — simple one with aloo-paratha and aloo-jeera — at the GMVN trekking resthouse to enjoy it at the lap of nature. And, water was aplenty: fresh mineral water directly from the melting glacier that we could see from the Valley. The best part of our trek was that only at Valley of Flowers we were not disturbed by the fleet of mules rather we could feel nature at its best. Serenity was redefined at the Valley where silence was only occasionally broken by sun-birds and flower-peckers. Bees, as we found, were literally busy-bees oblivion to shutterbugs like us! When we were coming back, i made a resolution to revisit the Valley, maybe like Margaret Legge, who died in a freak accident there in 1939, as embracing death amidst Nature is unique, too!
