The Tunganath Trek

At 12,000+ feet above MSL, Tunganath is the highest Shiva Temple in the world.  On our way to Gangotri, we stopped at Guptakashi and made a detour to Tunganath. This is where we saw the first snow capped peaks.

Our trek started out from a tiny hamlet called Chopta, which is as far as our car could go. From here it is a 3 km, 3500 feet climb to Tunganath. 

We walked through some of very beautiful landscape and finally passed the tree line. Above this point ( shown in the picture above ) there were no more trees. 

and there was snow on the ground, left over from last winter ( 2010-2011). The summer of 2011 had not been warm enough to melt these snow deposits! 

This was the last sign post before Tunganath, and then we arrived !

The weather was turning chilly and with the mist and fog rolling in, it was darkness at noon.

Having reached Tunganath, I thought that I should say something profound !

and Indira also spoke her mind on the the charms and challenges of the Tunganath Trek

with the weather turning suddenly very cold, note the snow on the ground, we start our descent

in an earlier era, in 1997, we had visited Kedarnath but the lack of digital camera had severly limited our photographic ambitions. however these two images survive from the Kodakchrome era

you would notice that the Kedarnath temple is very similar to the Tunganath temple . After Tunganath, we drove back to Guptakashi and then on to Uttarkashi through some spectacular scenery