Narkanda-Kotgarh-Hatu Top...

It has been nearly an year since I posted any travelogue. Actually I hardly did any tours since my last travelogue. This time the weekend plan to Narkanda, Himachal Pradesh was brewing in my mind and more inputs were provided by my two buddies who rode with me - Aditya and Aamir. The whole plan finally settled down to spending the night at Hatu top and doing some stargazing.


The ride begins at 3 am (for me) from my hostel parking lot. The first rendezvous was at Zirakpur with Aditya. We then rode to Himalayan Expressway toll booth where Aamir was waiting for us. From there, around 4:30am, we departed for Narkanda.

Stop 1: For tea, about 2 kms before Kandaghat.
Stop 2: Kandaghat to meet our friend Siddharth, had and awesome tea again.
Stop 3: The himalayan Dhaba, Narkanda.

In many travelogues, we had read about the Himalayan Dhaba, so we gave it a try. Lemon-ginger-honey tea was good and so was the coffee and veg sandwiches. We got aloo-pyaj paratha packed they were good too. These guys even have a place to stay, if someone wants to stay in Narkanda market.

From there, after having tea and bun samosa (palatable), we headed towards Tani-Jubbar lake. Initially we had an impression of it being a natural lake, but were disappointed to some extent. We had our breakfast there (parathas) and rode towards Kotgarh.






With a few missed turns and confusing directions, we finally reached St. Mary's Church, Kotgarh, the only place we visited there. It is a beautiful and old church built in 1872. Spending some time there was a bliss after a tiring ride.








Refreshed and energised, we left for Narkanda again to get our tanks filled and headed towards Hatu top. While on the way back to Narkanda, we spotted some vultures, huge ones !!! I had never seen one, up so close. managed to click a few pics, but they flew away.







We reached Hatu top around 3pm. We also found two beauties waiting - a BMW 1200GS and Kawasaki Ninja 650 being ridden by a father-son duo. We spent out time there admiring the spell binding beauty, discussing plans to set up our makeshift tent and, of course, for public to leave. The Hatu Temple is still under construction and is beautifully carved. The priest told us that the temple belongs to Mahabharat era and was made by Bheem himself. This is the place where Draupadi was cremated.

Initial plans were to spend the night around camp-fire and try to click the night sky and milky way. Alas! the plan could not be executed. The wind on the top was bone chilling, we were tired because of the ride and also sleepy because none of us slept well the night before. So we decided to retire after having dinner and tea. We set up our improvised tent in the parking area of Hatu temple, cooked maggie and tea on our improvised stove made of cold drink can. The high velocity winds kept waking us from time to time. Around 3am, we came out out of the tent to inspect if everything was ok and we were greeted with a night sky that I had never seen in my life. Numerous stars and the clear milkyway right above our heads. The moon was out of sight at that time, making it one of the most spectacular views i have ever witnessed. We spent about 15 mins admiring the beautiful sky and then retired to our tent. The only regret I had in this trip was the inability to capture the night sky.














Around 5:30am, we woke up finally and moved to the guest house area to capture the sunrise. We weren't disappointed. To our astonishment, the sun was brighter than ever! It was the brightest morning sun that I have witnessed till date. The photos don't do justice to the actual phenomena that we witnessed.


By 7:30am we had packed up and left Hatu Peak. We had snacks Himalayan dhaba, Narkanda and after that it was a long ride home. Returning was not as delightful as being there at Hatu.I do hope to visit Hatu again, if possible with better tent and camera.

Last stop before Chandigarh: Haveli, Dharampur for dinner.











Summary:
Distance: 441.9kms (parking lot to parking lot)
Time: ~36 hours
Road conditions: for most part, the road is good; the ascent from Narkanda to Hatu top is steep and narrow; loose gravel and soil at some patches.