Re: Of Gods & Mortals : A snow ride to Badrinath and Mana in extreme winters

eagerly waiting for the main course sir..... starters are just delicious.... pls feed us to stomachs full....

Re: Of Gods & Mortals : A snow ride to Badrinath and Mana in extreme winters

apologies for the delay guys, the first part of the travelogue will be up soon!

Re: Of Gods & Mortals : A snow ride to Badrinath and Mana in extreme winters

Fantastic teaser Sunil. Amazing pics. especially the 1st one. Will I please get the pic with full resolution.

Re: Of Gods & Mortals : A snow ride to Badrinath and Mana in extreme winters

Day 1: Anand Vihar ISBT, Delhi - Chamoli, Uttarakhand

This ride was originally conceived Tilak Soni, one of the finalists of True Wanderers 1.0. Tilak is an avid biker and a trekker himself. He & yours truly had been talking for a while about doing a roadtrip together, and this ride was the result of that. The necessary permits, etc., for the ride were obtained by Tilak himself from the district administration. Getting the required permits was the main task for this trip as the entire Badrinath town & Niti Valley area, particularly Badrinath, is out of bounds for civilians in winters as the heavy snow blocks the roads leading to it. Also the statue of Lord Badrinath is brought to Joshimath at the start of winters and is brought back to Badrinath temple around April end or May first week. Even the residents of the Badrinath town and the Mana Village descend down to less colder places during this time.

To prepare the bike, the Ceat-xBhp Duke 200 for this extreme ride, I fitted the bike with my trusted & tested Ceat Vertigo 120-70/17 tyre at the rear since the stock tyre was a little too soft for the off road sections of this ride, as well as the ride in the snow. To protect myself from the cold, I had 4 layers of warm clothing for the upper body, including the leather jacket, and 3 layers for the lower body. The riding gloves were also supported with a layer of fleece under-gloves.

As a co-rider, I had Manik Mittal on another Duke 200. Manik happens to be my oldest friend & the very first person I met on xBhp. We started our motorcycling touring together and had been on many roadtrips together to mountains, including Uttarakhand, Himachal, and Leh-Ladakh.

There were 7 more riders who joined the group, including one who had come all the way from Amritsar to join the ride. The riding team was as follows – Yours truly and Manik Mittal on Duke 200s; Om Mehta, Ram Sharma, KD Singh, Vikas Panghal, Jiwesh Mishra, Abhinav, & Sandeep Shandilya – all on different REs.

We were joined by Marisha Sharma, Kaushal Kishore, and Sudhir Gaur in the car driven by Tilak, which was also our official backup one that carried out ration and other emergency stuff, like firewood, etc. besides other stuff. Tilak’s friend Rajiv also joined us in his Gurkha from Rishikesh.

The group met Anand Vihar on Delhi-Ghaziabad border on January 11, 2013, at 5 a.m. & was soon on NH58 that goes all the way to Niti Valley via Meerut, Haridwar, Srinagar, etc. I joined them at a restaurant on the outskirts of Muzaffarnagar, which was first regrouping point. The road from Muzaffarnagar till Rishikesh, about 100 KMs, is one of the worst patches of road in the country. Narrow undivided road, huge potholes, animals sitting on the road, unmarked speed breakers popping out of nowhere, extremely heavy traffic, overloaded trucks & tractor trolleys, drivers on suicide mission, and villagers walking like zombies on the road – you will find everything on it that makes it a nightmare to ride or drive and you need to use every single drop of your experience if you want to stay alive on it.

Fighting this nightmarish stretch of road, we managed to reach Rishikesh, which was our second regrouping point. Some of the representatives of local media had also gathered to cover our expedition as this roadtrip also aimed to promote Uttarakhand tourism beyond Char Dham Yatra season, which is important as their economy depends mainly on the tourism which has taken a bad hit after last year’s floods. Some interviews and photo-sessions later, we were finally off riding in the foothills of Himalayas, on the serpentine road going along the life-line of India, the river Ganga. The first major milestone was Devprayag, one of the many prayags we’d find on the way (prayag = confluence of two or more rivers). Here the two main tributaries of Ganga, the Bhagirathi and Alaknanda, merge together in one river as Ganga.

We had our lunch at Srinagar, which is one of the major cities on this route & bore the brunt of ravaging Alaknanda River during the devastating Uttarakhand floods in June 2013. The original target for the day was Joshimath, which was going to be our base camp for the journey ahead. However, since we were a little behind the schedule and not everyone wanted to ride much after dark, we called it a day at Chamoli. Chamoli onwards, the road bifurcates into two where one leads to Badrinath and the other one to Kedarnath, the epicentre of 2013 tragedy.


The route for Day 1, we fell short of our target of Joshimath, which is quite normal when riding with such a big group.


& Here's the group that completed the ride


My first picture of the trip, taken somewhere before Muzaffarnagar


& this was taken at the resort where we I joined the group and we all had breakfast, near Muzaffarnagar




we had a royal welcome and flag off, some local media had also come there to cover the ride.








first break on the hills after Rishikesh


Devprayag - the confluence of river Bhagirathi & Alaknanda gives birth to the lifeline of India - River Ganga or Ganges as we know it. The water level had risen by more than 80 feet here during the Uttarakhand floods. Here onwards we will ride along with River Alaknanda all the way till Badrinath


another break, the KTM duo by the river side.

Re: Of Gods & Mortals : A snow ride to Badrinath and Mana in extreme winters

Superb, was waiting for this thread, riding to Himalayas in this season is something.....keep them coming...

Re: Of Gods & Mortals : A snow ride to Badrinath and Mana in extreme winters

Total Treat For Eyes.............. Keep it coming Sir.. Eagerly Waiting....

Re: Of Gods & Mortals : A snow ride to Badrinath and Mana in extreme winters

nice pics [MENTION=7123]sunilg[/MENTION]. Great ride...waiting for more.

Re: Of Gods & Mortals : A snow ride to Badrinath and Mana in extreme winters


Thanks guys, the first dish has been served. Hope you liked it.

yes

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you want it as a wallpaper or do you want to take a print of it?

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you want it as a wallpaper or do you want to take a print of it?

Re: Of Gods & Mortals : A snow ride to Badrinath and Mana in extreme winters

[MENTION=7123]sunilg[/MENTION] I want it as my desktop wallpaper. Because this is one of the best captures of rides.

Re: Of Gods & Mortals : A snow ride to Badrinath and Mana in extreme winters

@sunilg

Ghar yaad dila diya
NH24.. LOL ! But what you've mentioned is worse than Ghaziabad.

And the Pics and GoPro angles are *JawDropping*

Re: Of Gods & Mortals : A snow ride to Badrinath and Mana in extreme winters

Hi Sunilg,
What kind of eyes You have Boss every picture you click is awesome. Hats off to your pics and your Trips. And Sorry for being late commenter.

Re: Of Gods & Mortals : A snow ride to Badrinath and Mana in extreme winters

WOW finally GuptaJi..... I was waiting for this only. great Going..... now waiting for Day2

Re: Of Gods & Mortals : A snow ride to Badrinath and Mana in extreme winters

Spellbound, to say the least! Sir, your pictures have always been beautiful.
Subscribed and waiting for the rest. I am sure you've got plenty....

Re: Of Gods & Mortals : A snow ride to Badrinath and Mana in extreme winters

Thanks


Thanks guys! the day 2 will be uploaded soon!

Re: Of Gods & Mortals : A snow ride to Badrinath and Mana in extreme winters

Awesome stuff! Specially for those like me who wants to be in such a ride but can't for personal reasons. Keep going!