Where no Eagles dare

From Bhojbasa and Lal Baba, its 10km to Tapovan, which is a high altitude (14,500 ft) meadow meadow.jpg encircled by snow capped mountains ShivLing.jpg , Bagirathi123.jpg, BlackMt.jpg and guarded on one side by a moat - the Bhagirathi glacier climb1.jpg.
Before we get there though, we first cross the glacier over Gaumukh Gaumukh.jpg , the ice cave revered as the source of the Ganges. This is an awesome sight, with blue-green icewalls collapsing every so often, and the white waters of the Bhagirathi tumbling out.
And then the last stretch is 2 km of hell, straight up a landslide, with goons running down the hill at you, taking the hill along with them it seemed. The going was slow, very slow, until around 3:30pm we thankfully topped the ridge onto Tapovan.

A note here on how the group has been faring. Of the 4 guys and 3 girls, as expected, the girls fared much better. Prats prats.jpg, again as expected, was in tremendous shape and it seemed to me this was all a lark for her. Bro was steady, while Debbie, myself and Himja usually brought up the rear. The altitude really got to me- just could'nt seem to get enough O2 with each breath, and although my legs were willing, i could'nt have my legs go faster than my breath. The surprise entry was Bansi. The smoker and chronic bronchitis man shrugged off a bad attack just the day before the trek started, and after the first day, just could not be stopped. He was miles ahead of us each day. The worst lot fell to Small, who was ill before, during and after the entire trip. But I salute him, for he indeed made the entire distance partly on mule, mostly on foot . He says he was so out of it he cant remember anything SmallShivLing.jpg .

And here I must mention what a terrific soul we found in Gangotri, entirely by chance, to guide us on the trek. His name is Atal Sahi (far right in this photo - resting.jpg), from Nepal, and if any of you out there like, we can give you his address. Atal is the most cheerful, honest, hard-working person i ever met, and he helped us all, especially Small. And that's all - for now.