Exploration Story: A New Route to Gidara Bugyal

The post I’m writing today is very dear to me. It’s been three weeks since I’ve returned from one of the grandest adventures of my life. The adventure went beyond my Rupin Pass trek experience (which I hold extremely close to my heart), it went beyond trekking solo in Switzerland, it even went beyond trekking in the grand sceneries of Kashmir. 

It’s an experience that will go with me to my grave, because it was my first ever chance to be in an exploration team. 

We explored a new route to Gidara Bugyal. 🙂 

I had the honour of trekking with our founders, Arjun and Sandhya (for the very first time in seven years!), and a close colleague of mine, Izzat, who heads the Experiential Learning division at Indiahikes.

The four of us, along with our guide, Pravesh, set off to Gidara Bugyal from the village of Barsu — a route that’s seldom trekked on. Only shepherds usually roam these trails. We were looking to see if approaching Gidara Bugyal from the Siyari meadows would make a viable trekking route for the future. 

Pravesh was sent on a recce of this trail earlier this year. Even though some parts of the trail were unfamiliar with him, what he knew was still enough for him to play the guide’s role. 

Also, we were attempting the trek DIY style, experimenting with our new lightweight tents, sleeping bags, cooking gear and food. 

What followed was 5 days of sheer adventure. We saw some unbelievable mountain scenery. Of course, the meadows of Gidara took the cake, but I’ll get to that later.

The backstory of the Gidara Bugyal exploration

“Gidara Bugyal is an unfinished story from ten years ago,” shares Sandhya, our co-founder. “Back in 2010, when I was recce-ing Dayara Bugyal for the first time, a local shepherd had told me about Gidara Bugyal. He was singing praises of these meadows like it was paradise on earth. He had said, ‘You haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen Gidara.’

“I got so excited that I called Arjun immediately and asked him if I should go alone and explore Gidara right then. Though Arjun was equally excited, he said we had too many things going on to do the exploration right then. The exploration did not happen,” she says. 

Two years later, it was now Arjun’s turn at exploring the back corners of the Dayara and Siyari meadows. Siyari was almost halfway to Gidara Bugyal from Barsu. Though Arjun was tempted to explore Gidara, the uncertainty of the terrain and his lack of preparation made him hesitate. Again, the exploration of the Gidara Bugyal remained an unfinished dream. 

“It never went out of our minds though. I always knew I had to go back, I was just waiting for the right time,” says Arjun. “I had to find out for myself if the route to Gidara from Barsu, via the Siyari meadows, was a worthwhile one.”  

Finally, in 2021, ten years later, on a crisp November morning, five of us set off from Barsu, exploring a new route to Gidara Bugyal.

The new route to Gidara Bugyal

You may know that we already run the Gidara Bugyal trek (see trek here). Currently, we start this trek from Bhangeli, a small hamlet around 50 km from Gangotri. It’s a circular trek that touches the Gidara meadows and comes back to Bhangeli. 

This time, we were doing the trek from Barsu to Bhangeli via the Gidara meadows. 

Take a look at this map. You’ll see our current Gidara Bugyal trek in blue. The red trail is the new route we explored. The green one (just for reference) is our Dayara Bugyal trek.

The benefit of this new route was immediately apparent to us — we were doing what seemed like 2-3 treks within a span of 5 days. This needs a bit of explanation. 

We started our trek from Barsu, across a ridge from where we could see Dayara Bugyal. From there we touched the Siyari meadows (a great trek on its own!). From Siyari, we climbed to a high point called Surya Top, and further up to 13,600 ft, which was the highest point on the trek. 

On the third day, it was a challenging journey to reach the Gidara meadows. We had to squeeze through nooks and crannies in the mountains, across jagged cliffs and trail-less moraine sections. 

Even though the distance wasn’t much (30 km), it felt like we had walked 50 km. The trek was not easy on my legs — I’ll admit I am not at my fittest best at this moment. But what we were bombarded with — the many scenery changes everyday made it feel like so many different treks. 

I want to take you through some of the biggest highlights of the trek. 

What to watch out for on this route: 

The meadows of Siyari

To me, this was the first “Wow” point on the trek. Even though the first day’s trek was beautiful, through oak forests and lovely clearings (in one of which we camped), the moment we got to the meadows, I was stunned.