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| Map with Kheer Ganga on top right |
Kalga to Kheer GangaWe started early in the morning from Kalga (read earlier post on Kalga). We were told it was a 3 hours trek with moderate difficulty. Though I knew I would have problem with my age, I was cheerful and determined to trek knowing what lies ahead, the most beautiful and hidden nature’s wonder!
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| On way to Kheer Ganga |
As the sun started rising, we started noticing few snowy peaks far away for the first time in the dense fog. We walked on; this walk was mostly through dense green trees on a slightly slippery steep gradient with deep valley on the left and mountains with thick green woods on the right.
After travelling for another 1 hour we saw a hypnotizing natural phenomenon, a long white cascading ribbon of silky waterfall was in front of us (almost 100 feet in height) graciously provided by Mother Nature herself. It was the most striking waterfall I have ever seen in my life, huge in size and loud in sound. The sound was so loud that we could hardly hear each other’s voices. I stepped into the water and it was freezing cold. Although access to this living waterfall was not very easy but it made us so relaxing that we almost forgot that we are tired.
We had our packed lunch in between on the route near a small waterfall. On our remaining path we crossed so many small but beautiful waterfalls, some narrow slippery paths having beautiful flowers all around side and huge trees covering the sky. Jungle was so dense that sunlight was hardly reaching the ground but In spite of all the danger we couldn’t stop ourselves appreciating the beauty of that place.
We continued walking after covering about 12 Kilometers
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| Kheer Ganga Meadows |
The moment we stepped in Kheer Ganga we saw a huge ground (like a golf course) surrounded by tall and majestic mountains 360 degrees and crowned with white snow, cattle’s were grazing the ground and dense white clouds were all around us. I rubbed my eyes and pinched myself to confirm if I was not dreaming. It was totally like heaven on earth, so peaceful and so pure.
There were few lodging huts.
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| Lodges at Kheer Ganga |
Our guide Sonu talked to one foreign owner of a lodge we moved in. I was still out looking around the amazing painting of God!
We could not see any Indian traveler around us there were all foreigners in that area.
As we were tired, we retired early to bed taking our dinner. For dinner, you have options. There are few restaurant huts offering variety of Indian and western dishes. It was cold. I came out of my hut to see sky. There was no moon. I looked up and witnessed a rare phenomenon...not seen in metro towns of India- a beautiful starry night as if twinkling pearls are stuck on a roof. Wow!
Next day, visited a beautiful temple followed by a hot bath in Gauri kund(named after a Hindu Goddess ‘Gauri’). It’s a religious hot water bath, which was few meters away from our lodge. The water was really hot especially felt when the outside temperature was almost zero degrees Celsius. A heaven!
So different and unique. Beautiful but queer...with a mystic aura around with foreigners smoking Hashish...distant snow peaks with mist slowly rising...very unusual, indeed!
By noon we returned by a different route to Burshaini. Our Jeep was waiting there to take us back to Kasol and then to Kullu
Pictures courtesy:
http://thinkingparticle.com/blog/kheer-ganga-trekking-himachal