Gangotri

One of our main goals for traveling to India this past summer was to spend time in the Himalaya.  For as long as I can remember I’ve felt called to the mountains.  There is something about having elevation above me, surrounding me- that brings comfort, joy, and peace.  To know I can head up a nearby mountain and have a vantage of the country side is both rewarding and nurturing.  Mountains are like my safety blanket.  Fredericksburg, Virginia is relatively flat, with only some rolling hills nearby.  Living in West Virginia for four years started this obsession with living in mountainous areas.  I feel a sense of anxiety when I can’t look up and see terrain above or around me.  As a geographer I enjoy the look of mountains, the feel of mountains, and the culture the mountains draw.  Some mountains are as looming as they are majestic, others are as jaggedly craggy as they are awe inspiring.  

I really knew little of what I would find in the mountains of India.  I’ve read several mountaineering books about the major peaks of the Karakoram and Hindu Kush of the Himalaya in Nepal and Pakistan- but not the lesser mountains, the foothills, or the communities of mountain people in India.  As sharply as the elevation climbs nearly strait up, so quickly do the villages cling to its slopes.  

We left Rishikesh in the early afternoon.  After missing all the buses north, we took a taxi to the shared jeep terminal.  Sharing jeeps was an unusual adventure.  Essentially you find a parking lot full of jeeps, people show up, and once the driver feels he can make a profit with the right load of people, everyone piles in, and you drive on.  The vehicles are called jeeps, but they are more like an oversized Isuzu Trooper or Mitsubishi Montero.  Most of them are manufactured by Tata, some are Toyota.  The front drivers bench seat comfortably holds 3, we saw as many as 5.  The middle bench seat holds 3, again, we saw as many as 5.  The rear of the jeep has two sets of bench seats facing inward.  This area should hold 4, we saw 6.  That adds up to a max capacity of 16, but we counted at least 17 or 18 in some.  It never ceased to amaze us how many people will cram more into a vehicle.  In the flatlands you could have over 25 people hanging off the back or sitting on the roof of the jeep racing down the highway.  Even a speed bump could be catastrophic with that load.

As for traveling in this country- it was insane.  I feel like I’ve driven some of the most twisted, windy, back woods roads in West Virginia and western North Carolina- they don’t come close to the Himalaya.  It is hard to fathom, much less describe how some of these roads were cut into the steep slopes.  Recently the History Channel filmed a season of Ice Road Truckers in India.  I’m not much for cable television, especially “reality television”, but I watched just a couple of these episodes to reminisce.  They realistically portray how dangerous the roads are, and how wreck less the local people drive on them.

In order to reach Gangotri we had to spend an evening in Uttarkashi.  Considered a hub of the northern parts of Uttarakhand province, Uttarkashi largely succeeds by supporting the tourism and rice industries.  There are many basmati rice farmers in this part of the country.  All along the highway farms are cut into  the hillside.  Rice is cultivated by cutting terraces, or large flat tiers into the hillsides, then allowing them to flood.  Most of the terraces are in the less sloped terrain near the bottom of the valleys alongside the river.  Nearly all the tiny villages in this part of the Himalaya are holy sites.  Each summer, after the snow melts and the roads open thousands of pilgrims come to pay homage to the source of the Ganges River.  Gangotri is the most important of the religious sites.

This tiny village is completely desolate in the winter months.  From late spring through early fall tens of thousands of pilgrims, maybe even hundreds of thousands pass through this site on the way to Gomokh, source of Mother Ganga.  With several options for treks and 6000 meter mountaineering peaks nearby, a lot of travelers also lay over in Gangotri.  We spent five days here.  It was a very serene and relaxing spot.  The weather was much cooler, very similar to Alaska mountain weather.  Evening temperatures could easily drop into the 50’s.  The elevation was over 3000 meters, almost 10,000 feet.  The mountains were generally obscured by dense cloud cover.  Occasionally the clouds would lift revealing steep sheer rock walls leading to razor edge ridges above.

Hindu’s believe at least once in a lifetime they must travel to the source of the Ganges River.  Once at the glacier they fill up containers with the sacred water, then return home.  Thus like any good tourist town, Gangotri had lots of souvenir shops in the bazaar.

They even had specific pilgrimage clothing.  Bright orange obviously the popular color.

Gangotri at sunset.