Halfway up to Dodital in 2003 we met this village lady and shared a Kit-Kat chocolate bar with her. She said she made four trips a day with this load. When we asked her where, she pointed to a ravine below us and then to a cliff somewhere impossibly high above us. Obviously, our own packs didn't seem all that heavy any more.

I love Garhwal!

Bandarpunch from Darwa Top, near Dodital

Here's a picture of Bandarpunch in the Garhwal Himalayas, from Darwa Top, just above Dodital. Students of Woodstock School, Mussoorie, were there on their annual field trip.

Why the fascination with Bandarpunch?

I think I've been to Dodital and up the ridge to Darwa Top Bugiyal at least seven times now. The ridge puts you right in front of Bandarpunch (6316m) and its southside glaciers at an altitude of a little over 12,000 feet. The "bugiyal" is a soft mountain meadow filled with wild strawberries and flowers nestled in the rich long mountain grass that nomadic gujjars like so much for their buffaloes in the summer months (it's also a great place to lie down after the climb up). Even in the short climb (2-4 hours) from Dodital you experience the exhilaration of increased altitude, clear mountain air, and that humbling sense of shrinking distances as you gaze at the snow-clad giant before you.