My Weekend Odysseys

It was day 3 of our trip and today we were walking from Deoriatal to Chopta, from one mountain to another passing through meadow of "Rohini Bugyal", passing through the dense forest laden with red and pink coloured Rhododendron trees.Our host family was up early in morning by 4am to ready our breakfast and making our packed lunch of Paratha. By 7am we were all set and ready for our 14 kms trek to Chopta, our guide from Sari village had reached previous night and was staying with our host family. It is advisable to start early at first sunlight as we later found that it is a long trail with lots of ascend and descend, also the rains with icy cold droplets can slow you down substantially. Bidding goodbye to our host we started our trek at 7.30am passing next to Deoria tal and the watch tower. The trail starts from behind the forest lodge passing through Rhododendron flowerbed and forest cover. The peaks of Chaukhamba and Kedar dome were peeping out of the clouds a

When I started searching for some treks option in Uttarakhand, my main criteria was to do some trek which doesn't have any technical climb and was not very difficult. I wanted to do some treks which had long walks, wilderness surrounded by mountains, some walks in snow, stay in budget home stays and travel by local public transport for this was going to be a self planned trek. The first place which came to my mind was Chopta which is known as mini Switzerland of India and a trek to temple of Tungnath and above it the Chandrashila peak with its mesmerizing sunrise. Being a Mumbaite, it takes two days of one way travel to reach any place in mountains so wanted to do more than only Chopta - Tungnath - Chandrashila. So after lot of reading, connecting with people on FB and taking their experience and insight, decided to do Sari - Deoriatal lake and then take a long wilderness trail from Deoria tal lake to Chopta.  After much planning and long deliberations on stays, travel and tr