By Mayank Sharma | Resource Manager
A new session for the academic year 2019-20 commenced on 8th April 2019. After the results were announced, all children moved to their new classes with full enthusiasm. The big excitement and discussion was about the annual summer trip.
To know more about the culture, divinity and traditions of our State, Uttarakhand, we chose to visit the two Dhams of Uttarakhand - Kedarnath and Badrinath. Students from classes 8, 9 and 11 were selected for this trekking trip.
Early morning on 1st June, 52 students along with 6 teachers, boarded PYDS school buses and started their journey for their first destination – Gupkashi.
The road journey became enjoyable with children singing and dancing on folk songs of Garhwal. Enjoying the scenic beauty through the way, the group reached Guptkashi around 10 PM at night. Tired through the journey, expected comfort but found no electricity. The group was well prepared to meet this contingency with torches. Next morning, was amazed to see snow covered Himalayas all round.
Next morning group proceeded to Sonprayag, the last road head to the trek to Kedarnath. Everyone packed well and equipped themselves for this challenging 21Kms trek from Gaurikund. The 30 Kms long bus travel to Sonprayag seemed to be never ending with roads full of cars and buses. It took us about 16 Hrs. to cover this small distance. Finally we got off our buses at 01:30 AM and took the local jeeps to Gaurikund. Everyone was in high spirit and determined to reach Kedarnath Temple, and we started trekking around 02:30 AM at night. The initial stretch of the trek was over crowded with mules and devotees. After all this struggle, we trekked for 10 Hrs. and reached the Temple. This was a relief. The same evening we did Darshan and the next morning started our trek down crossing glaciers and taking shortcuts.
Taking blessings of Lord Shiva, we returned back to our accommodation at a Navodaya Vidalayaya, Guptkashi. The day long trek and drive, exhausted everyone and most of us skipped dinner to go to bed early.
With no wish to get out of the bed next morning, everyone was forced to get ready for another long drive to Badrinath, however this beautiful drive rejuvenated each one of us. Some of us opted to take a dip in a local river and were filled with energy. We reached our beautifully located accommodation amidst the Badrinath ranges, The Youth Hostel. We spent three wonderful days here. The temple here was also full of devotees and we had to get into the queue early morning. After visiting the temple all of us opted to sleep which was much needed. Next morning everyone was fresh and we visited Mana that is the last Indian village towards the North. We trekked up to Vasudhara falls.
On 8th June we drove to Gopeshwar and spent a night here before proceeding to Tungnath the next morning. All of us trekked to Tungnath while some of us opted to go beyond up to Chandrashila. After this beautiful trek all of us returned to Guptkashi. Next day we started our return journey towards Dehradun. On the way we stopped at Tehri Lake and every one excitedly enjoyed 30 min cruise on the Tehri Lake. For some of us this was the best experience. After a halt at Chamba this night, we were excited to be back home after 11 days travel. On the 11th, all of us reached home safely with wonderful memories, experiences and learnings.
This was not all. The major highlights of the trip was the Clean Mountain Drive. The aim of our trip was to clean our environment and make it pollution free. Each place’s beauty was breath taking while something that bothered us a lot was the waste, plastic and lot more scattered all around. This was the time when all of us decided to step up and take the responsibility. We cleaned and picked up the waste from the mountains and the places we trekked on. We even planted deodar saplings at Badrinath Youth Hostel. This indeed made our trip more special and memorable one.
Below is the link to a video of this cleaning campaign and a newspaper article. All of us are proud of what we did on this educational tour.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZZoFg8rDpQ&t=15s
http://garhwalpost.in/pyds-children-clean-kedar-badri-trails/
By Mayank Sharma | Resource Manager
By Mayank Sharma | Resource Manager
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