"Gateway to Mountain Treks" a Rudraprayag Travel Page by tayloretc

This page only exists for the travelogs of the Kauri Pass trek. If you’re wondering about Rudraprayag, all I can tell you it’s located where two rivers meet, the town sprawls up and down the hills on all sides, and it’s the last place pick up supplies (with any kind of selection) or get money on the route to either Kedarnath or Badrinath, let alone to the less traveled places in eastern Uttaranchal.

I’ve been trying to write about the trek for ages, and I can’t. After Chandrashila I was having a hard time writing anyway, and by the time I finished the trek I’d been walking up and down mountains between 9,000 and 14,000 feet for 6 or more hours a day, for 20 days straight. I’m 38, live at sea level, work long hours sitting at an office job, and am lucky to fit in half an hour of Tae Bo a few times a week. I wasn’t ready to begin with, and by the end I had wrenched my left knee twice, I was nearly crippled from blisters, and for nearly a day the front half of the sole of my shoe was halfway off (held on with dental floss until something better could be devised) which in snow and mud means cold and wet feet, and on hardscrabble trails means jabbing rocks in your toes and tripping over everything. I was almost carried off by a vulture at one point. Literally.

I don’t have a photo of that particular vulture, since after its second, and closer, flyby I didn’t stick around, but you can see the location in one of the photos, and there are a couple of photos of the same kind of vulture (Himalayan Griffin) in the Uttaranchal fauna travelog.

Anyway, the trek was worth it, even if I’m out of words and it took three months to recover. The photos are in more or less chronological order. We went south to north, which is unusual, but which gave us time to acclimatize and also saved the best views for last. I went with Red Chilli Adventure, who I recommend whole-heartedly. (Don’t mention my name, though, they might not take you.)

Without further ado, my Kauri Pass trek.