2009-08-05T23:09:00.000-07:00

The most popular trekking route in Sikkim is also one of the most beautiful treks in the Indian Himalaya. The trek starts from a small town ‘Yoksum’ and ends fittingly at the south-east base of the Mt. Kanchenjunga at the Goecha La Pass (4960mts). Standing on the pass the view of the south-east face of the third highest mountain in the world is astounding.

It was a dream come true for us (me, Arindam and Souvik – the same team that went to the Cholamu Lake last year) when we boarded the Howrah-NJP special on the 2nd of April 2009 for our journey to undertake this wonderful Himalayan trek. We had entrusted the trek logistics like guide, potters, cook, tents etc. on “Himalayan Adventure”, a Gangtok based trek-cum-tour agency run by Kishen Gurung. He had made all the arrangements so that we could indulge in the luxury of a ‘sahib’-style trek.

We started from NJP at around 11 am, had lunch en-route at the Teesta bazaar and reached Yoksum at around 4 pm. It was raining at Yoksum when we got down from the car and checked into a hotel “Hotel Pemathang” - a decent hotel with clean rooms and balcony on its first floor offering fantastic view of the valley. We quickly got ourselves freshened, dumped our baggage and headed out straight to the Yoksum bazaar to find some good restaurant where we could have our dinner. Before we left the hotel for dinner, our guide for the trek came to meet us and described how one of his friends, another guide, who just returned from the trek with a party of foreign trekkers had witnessed the clear weather up the mountain. Their team had successfully completed the trek and would be returning to Gangtok the following day. We too had the determination and pressed upon our guide “Kunal” to help us reach the pass and cross it to the other side overlooking the Tolung glacier to get unrestricted view of the southern face of the mighty Kanchenjunga. He promised and we happily left for dinner. We had hot rotis and spicy egg curry for dinner at the Gupta hotel – a very famous place to eat at Yoksum, and returned with Sikkim famous Hit beer to our hotel. We stayed up until 1 am in the night drinking beer and enjoying the nightscape from our hotel balcony – what a wonderful experience that was!

Day 1: After having a light breakfast, we started our first day’s walk of 18 kms to a small village named Tsoka. The walk was mostly uneventful except that I remember reaching Tsoka at complete darkness with fog, cloud and drizzle making difficult for us the last couple of kilometers after Bakkim. The visibility was reduced to almost a foot and turning on our headlights also proved futile. The light failed to cut through the dense fog. It created more confusion – the trail by then had almost disappeared in fog and darkness. We turned off our headlamps and followed our instincts until after walking for about half an hour in that fog, our guide and the yak-man came as saviors. That day we crossed four bridges – the first three over Pah khola and the last one over Prek Chu. We would be following the Prek Chu upstream until its source at the Sungmoteng (or Samiti) Lake beyond the Thangsing valley.

Tsoka Village

Sachen is a small clearing in the forest on the way after the third bridge. There is a trekkers’ hut and many trekkers take rest and have lunch there.

About 2 kms before Tsoka, is another small village called ‘Bakkim’ with a forest rest house. There is a small shop run by perhaps the chowkidar of the FRH that sells mineral water, cold drinks, Lays, rum and god knows what not! At that altitude however you have to pay a premium price, more than double the MRPs sometime, to buy stuff.

Our tent had been pitched on the ground outside the Trekkers hut. We three quickly huddled ourselves into the tent, into our sleeping bags, covered our nose and ears with balaclava and made ourselves comfortable. Our guide served us hot tea and a bowl of hot Thukpa. We savored that in no time and went to sleep.

Day 2: We woke up in warm sunny morning. The view of Pandim, Tinchenkhang, North and South Kabru peaks from outside our tent was great. The fatigue from last day’s marathon walk simply vanished as we watched the peaks and bathed ourselves in the morning sun. We had tea and porridge as breakfast and started our day’s walk. Dzongri was our destination for the day. A 4-6 kms of walk through dense rhododendron forest before we reached a small clearing on a hill-top called “Phedang”. The path from Tsoka to Phedang is steep, muddy and tiring. Infact, after Phedang until Deorali top, the path climbs steeply through boulders. The trail above Phedang is above the tree line and dense forest is reduced to small scrubs. From Deorali top, the trail is mostly downwards. A 4-5 kms walk from Deorali top and we reached the meadows of Dzongri. A small ridge crossed and turning a bend we had the view of the Dzongri trekkers’ hut in front of us. When we were at the Deorali top, the weather had deteriorated and fog started to build up. Our guide made a small offering of the incense plant and burnt juniper leaves on the top of the pass to please the weather god. It is believed that if prayed with a clear mind, the weather god will be pleased and the smoke from the burning incense plants and junipers will drive away the monster cloud and fog and weather up the mountain will be fine. Kunal however was unable to build enough smoke to clear the fog and our distress with the weather started from there.

We managed to stay at the trekkers’ hut, shared a room with a foreigner couple who reluctantly agreed to let one corner of their occupied room to us. I believe they must have had some other plan for the night which we unwittingly screwed or else they must have thought that they booked a suite at the trekker’s hut. Whichever be that, they misbehaved with us and that perhaps was the one and only bitter experience we had in the entire course of our trek.

Snow covered Dzongri meadow just outside the Trekkers' hut

Day 3: We woke up at 3 am in the morning. It had snowed pretty heavily the earlier night and the tent inside which Kunal and his friend (Oh, I forgot to mention – Roman, Kunal’s friend was also trekking with us. He too did not see Goecha La and was equally excited like us) was sleeping, was covered with atleast a couple of inches of snow. We woke them up and began our climb of the front ridge to the Dzongri Top. We reached the top in time to witness what perhaps was one of the best views I have had of the Himalaya till date.

North and South Kabru with black Kabur Rock in front

Tinchenkhang, Pandim, North and South Kabru, black Kabur, Thalung, Jannu and at the centre of them the beautiful Kanchenjunga – a wonderful 360 degree panorama.

Kanchenjunga turning crimson on first rays of sun

On one side the peaks of the Singalila range, on the other the cloud covered plains of Sikkim and Bengal. We watched with awe the grandeur of snow peaks turning crimson red, orange and finally white silver when the sun kissed them.

Sunset on the Singalila range as seen from the higher ridge above Dzongri

Day 4: We trekked for about 3 to 4 hours from Dzongri to reach the Prek Chu valley at the base of the mighty Pandim and the Tinchenkhang. On the way we crossed the river at a place called ‘Kokchurang’ where at the trekkers hut locals believe evil spirits ‘one that slaps hard on the face of the visitors’ exist.

Thangsing valley has a trekker’s hut and has unrestricted view of the true east face wall of the Kanchenjunga. It started to snow on the way and by the time we reached the trekkers hut, it began to pour heavily. Within an hour the vast Thangsing valley was covered with 3 to 4 inches of snow.

The weather however cleared before dark giving us the opportunity to see the east wall of the Kanchenjunga from that close. We never got to see Kanchenjunga again for the rest of our trek.

Thangsing valley at the foot of Mt. Pandim and Tinchenkhang

Thangsing valley with view of the south-east wall of Mt Kanchenjunga

Snow covered Thangsing valley at the foot of Mt. Pandim

Day 5: After lunch, we started off for Lamune. We reached there when the wind was blowing heavily. We had a difficult time pitching the tent in that growling wind. We got inside the tent and within an hour it started to snow. It snowed the entire night until the following day morning. We had the plan to get out for our final push to Goecha La at around midnight, but snow made us wait inside the tent. We could not sleep that night and waited the night for snow to stop. I remember the snow not having stopped even for a moment. Around 4 am we got out of our tent and could hardly believe what we saw. In the full moon the landscape had turned into a moonscape. With knee deep snow everything wore an unearthly blanket, even out tent from outside looked alien. We cleared the entrance of our tent, got out and then got in. Fate or fear – whatever be, we decided to stay in the tent.

Around 7 am, when our yak man confirmed that the day was not going to clear up and it would snow anytime, we dropped our plan of staying one more day there for our next day’s attempt to Goecha La. We decided to go that day only to the extent we could. We went upto the ridge beyond the Samiti Lake and just before Jemathang, bad weather, dense fog and snow made us turn back.

We were chased by snow from Dzongri onwards and even on our return path we encountered snow until Phedang. Omen it definitely was – we would like to believe. We failed to please the weather god at Deorali top. Dream unfulfilled, we returned with a promise of returning back to Kanchenjunga next year.

Dzongri Goecha La Trek