Supervolcano, Super geology

With all the talk of volcano explosion in Iceland, the power of volcanoes, and their predictable unpredictability, I decided it was time to pay homage to the supervolcano that is the heart of the Great Plaines of North America. Its beauty in the form of flora and fauna, its size that forms a caldera 30 miles by 40 miles, its diverse geological landscapes create a mystical world of nature that has morphed over a few million years. Here we are at Yellowstone.

So we landed at Billings, Montana, and got a rental car and drove the 150 miles or so to Yellowstone. It is a wonderful drive up and down snow peaks, taking curvy roads that can be fun to drive. This also means you can’t do the normal 70 miles or 80 miles an hour, so be prepared for a bit of a longer drive than a normal 150 miles.

The best time to go to Yellowstone is between June and mid-September, the summer months. We picked the long weekend in September, Labor Day weekend, to go to Yellowstone. At that time, I was doing a lot of camping in parks within driving distance of Chicago from Wisconsin to Kentucky, so I thought it would make for a complete park experience to stay in a rustic log cabin, so we choose Roosevelt Lodge which is all the way north of the park at Tower Falls. It has communal restrooms and no hot water; heating for the room is provided by an actual log burning fireplace. Note: They are not kidding when they say the temperatures dip down to freezing at night. Pick up a couple of extra logs for each night if you are not used to the cold, or don’t like it, like me. Or else you’ll have an uncomfortable, restless night. These are the basic cabins. Ones with attatched bathrooms etc are available, but since these cabins oprate only June through September, they get sold out fast, so be sure to book early.

There are several other options for lodging in the park. The best place to llok for accurate up to date information is : http://usparklodging.com/yellowstone/index.php

The Roosevelt Lodge has the perfect look to fit in with the nature. Even the main dining area and other facilities are built from logs, and have a very mid-western, out back feel to them. About 20 feet from our cabin was a little stream, and the first morning, we saw deer hanging around the water and playing. Perfect! That’s worth the money and time right there! Plus the lodge offers an Old West Dinner Cookout, where they take you in horse stage coaches into the mountains, and the cowboys and the wild west men cook a meal as you sit around a fire with tea pots hanging over it and enjoy the nature around. It was something like I saw in Clint Eastwood movies: the men, their outfits, the fire, the tea pots, the landscape around, the horses.

There are only so many roads in Yellostone, so it isn’t like one can get lost, really. But if you take the wrong turn, it will take you a while to back track. We realized we had to not worry too much about drive time as we got stuck on the road because some one ahead spotted a black bear with three cubs. Of course, every one abandoned their cars, pulled out their cameras and traffic came to a stand still even as the rangers were dispensing caution and common sense stories about how bad it can be to go near a mother bear with her cubs near by. None the less, it was worth the sight and a couple of pictures. That’s the story one wants to go home with, and a photo to make it all believable! At the end, it takes a while for the traffic to get to normal again.

There is so much to do at Yellowstone, I could have spent a couple of weeks there easily and had busy tiring days every day. The best place for current activities and information is http://www.nps.gov. It is key to read through this if you want to do a lot of outdoor activities and camping. It even tells what you need to know before you go there, and what you need to take.

Since I had only a long weekend to spend there, basically three nights and four days, I choose to see the different colors of mother earth instead of doing fun activities. To me, the wonder of what makes Yellowstone house such a variety of geology and landscapes that I can’t see in such close range any where else in the world beat out fun camping and hiking trips. It was wonderful to see that there were plenty of animals every where and we didn’t have to really go looking for them. We saw plenty of bison, pronghorns, elk, moose, black bears, and even one grizzly. That was a healthy vibrant feeling to know these animals are thriving so well and are not as endangered as they were once.

I did take a horse back ride for a couple of hours onto a hill. That was a pretty sight from up there across to the other hills. I can’t explain the serenity and calm that such a vast natural picture can bring about. It is as if everything is just right with the world, as if nothing can go wrong. No technology, no buildings, no hurrying people, just the nature doing its thing in time.

Starting up north are the Mammoth Terraces. These are hot springs that are very active in a certain part of the park. The unique limestone build ups give a very mars like look and feel to this geological wonder. There is a long walk that one must do to get up close and literally be able to walk over these hot springs. They are in a few areas, but there is a main walk that has several of them and will take at least an hour to walk through.

The canyons of the Yellowstone are quite something to see. The name “Yellowstone” comes from the color of the rock of the canyon walls. At sunset or sunrise, the color looks unreal and shines as if it were gold. It has more greenery than the Grand Canyon and is smaller, but it is quite something to see hot gases escaping from the water below, to know that as cold as it is, as calm and cool as the water looks, there is something boiling beneath it that is more destructive than we can tell standing there. There is a Grand Canyon of The Yellowstone, aptly named so, that is a nice place to sit and catch a bite to eat if you are carrying your food with you.

If you look at the road map of Yellowstone, you will see it is basically and “8”, with roads connecting into it from different sides. So if you plan right, you can drive each road and see as much as possible of the park’s different facets while you go from one point to another. Also, we covered the north first, but since the geysers and hot springs were more south, we decided to stay there for a night too. There, we stayed at the Old Faithful Inn, from where you can see the Old Faithful geyser, and which is right in the middle of the area that one can walk through to see several other geysers. Old Faithful may be the highest geyser, but there are several more active ones that are going continuously. One can easily spend half a day walking this trail and looking at the same natural event occurring so differently within feet of each other.

We drove south of Yellowstone to the Grand Teton National Park for not other reason but to get a glimpse of the massive mountain ranges. At that point, I had never seen anything so big. It seems funny even now to think that such a large area of pure, untouched nature sits in the middle of America. Chicago doesn’t seem so big with the millions of people and buildings and cars and fast life. There, in those forests and mountain ranges and water falls and animals, it seemed like earth had more to offer than a road to run from place to place and be “productive citizens”. It seems I am more at home in the jungle of Chicago than the natural jungle for that was alien enough for me to ogle and marvel at for days. This is definitely a place to take children and family to a few times in life, be able to see and do different things each time, and work with and around nature.

Travel The Roads To Heaven… And Beyond

Trip Taken April 2010

The destination was Sikkim because of two simple factors: one, some one the family knew is working on a hydro power project and so had some infra structure there; two, the “Valley of Flowers” which bloomed once a year and is celebrated with great gusto started this year on April 25th so that meant it was the right time to go to see such a popular sight.

The flight tickets are expensive (atleast Rs15,000 round trip) and the journey from Hyderabad to Gangtok (Sikkim does not have an airport) took over 12 hours from door to door. So I booked the tickets quickly, before I made the plan. As I started my research, I realized not much was known about the second smallest state in India, definitely the least populated state. I couldn’t quite fathom why that was. Travel from Delhi and other cities in the north wasn’t half as bad. There were only a few roads on a map; I found five in the whole state, so it isn’t like one could get lost. There was enough to do from talking to people to keep one busy for a week. So I took off with what little information I could find.

The drive from Bagdogra, West Bengal, to Gangtok took around 4.5 hours and covered 130km. Why, you say? It is all ghat (unfinished and rough) roads, winding up and down mountains. So travel by road is harsh and long.

Ten days, including one for going, one for coming back, left me with eight to see all of the state. I slept in Gangtok the first night, then left for Lachung in the north east. Lachung is the last town to stay in before entering the military base area which requires a pass and that leads up to Yumthang Valley and the Valley Of Flowers. The drive from Gangtok to Lachung was about seven hours, including a long break for lunch at Mangan, the mid way point. There is nothing to do in these small remote villages in the evening as it gets rainy and cold. The roads are bad, hence you want to start your day at day break, around 5am, and end it by 7pm, which is a stretch in itself.

The drive is something out of a mythical story book. Waterfalls every 15 minutes that start from a point high up in the mountain that one can’t see and vanish into the thick forests some where below, but we know they all meet down at the River Teesta. The greenery is in so many shades of green, the leaves so clean from daily rain, that they gleam and shine as if polished. The forest is so thick and the mountains so high that it looks like the rain forests out of some movie studio, unnatural and unimaginable in size.

I stayed at the Mayfair resort in Lachung, the only five star hotel there. Even that had minimum comforts. No central heat, limited hot water, no grand service, no land line phones. So I can imagine how basic other places are. At the end of a long tiring day, I needed the best sleep I could get, so I paid the price of Rs8000 for a room with a small heater and a hot water bag in the bed because even the hotel staff knew the heater was insufficient for the room!

Lachung is located at about 8,800 ft; Gangtok is about 5,000ft. So two nights in these elevations was the best acclimatization I could get before venturing off the next morning to the Valley of Flowers and Yumthang Valley at 12,200ft, and then proceeded until the road ended in Yumasongdong at what is called Zero Point at 14,500 ft. The drive was breath taking. We went through the valley and drove right upto the highest point straight away without stopping. The reason is quite simple: The skies are the clearest in the mornings and the clouds set in by afternoon and one can’t see the mountain peaks as it becomes grey and is not quite as picturesque. So it is best to start at the highest point in every drive every day. A pass issued by the Sikkim government is needed to go past Laghung into the Valley of Flowers. Foreigners are allowed.

The altitude and the cold hit me pretty hard. I have never been, or don’t know that I have been, any where near those heights. And going from 44 degree centigrade to snow plus winds didn’t help much. I was dizzy, my blood pressure came down, and I felt like I was going to pass out. Yet, I saw all these people running around and climbing the mountain in front of me with snow on it. Well, I guess I am not as invincible as I thought I was. None the less, the view was beautiful and so I walked slowly around as much as I could, sat and enjoyed the vastness of the mountain ranges, and drove down back to Yumthang Valley to enjoy the flowers. The river that flows through the valley, created from the melting snow above, is Lachung Chu, one of the two rivers that merge together at Chumthang to make the Teesta River.

The flowers that attract people and the flowers around which the festival is celebrated is the rhododendron. A Greek name that translates to “Rose tree”, they come in a variety of colors like roses and bloom in clusters. Rhododendrons include about a thousand varieties and species, including the common azaleas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhododendron

Well, the Valley of Flowers is an apt name that needs no further explanation; it is a valley, and the valley is filled with flowers, mostly rhododendrons, mostly around seven feet high. It is such a beautiful sight, I was sorry I didn’t carry a saree along so I could wear it and sing as I ran through the flowers and around bushes. That would have been the only time I thought doing something like that was appropriate.

That day’s sight seeing ended us back at the hotel at 4pm. We had left our bags behind at mayfair Hotel, so we ate (actually, we ordered, 45 minutes later the food was still being prepared, so we asked for it to be packed and got on the road), and drove to Lachen, a parallel village on the second river, Lachen Chu, the other river that made the Teesta River. The drive from Lachung to Lachen took about three hours since one has to go down to Chumthang to drive back up to Lachen.

We stayed at the Apple Orchard in Lachen, a beautiful looking resort right down to the trees and exterior details. The people and service was great, as was the food and the hospitality of all including the owner who called to apologize for not being there to welcome us because he left to Gangtok in a hurry. Rs.6000 for a double occupancy, including three meals and taxes, and that was money well spent. They didn’t even fuss about packing our boiled eggs, toast and a flask of tea for breakfast at 5:30am, which we informed them about the night before.

The fourth day morning we left at 6am again for Gurudongmar Lake. I knew from the lack of information and the difficulty in getting there that this was something to behold. What I didn’t know until I saw it was that it would be the purest sight I have ever seen and that the vision of it would stay in my heart and mind for ever. Located at 17,500 feet, 5 km from the China border, the lake is part of the Kanchenjunga range and is frozen most times of the year. The drive of 70km from Lachen takes at least 3.5 hours. Since it is so close to the China border, it is in a military zone and hence no foreigners are allowed and Indians need to obtain a pass to be handed over at the military check post. The lake was open to visitors at all only in 1994, quite recent if you think about it.

I was better prepared for the altitude and cold this time. I wore four layers, a scarf around my neck, tights under my jeans, a hood to protect my head and ears, took camphor to make my breathing easy and make me less dizzy, drank coca cola every few minutes to pump sugar into me, and took my time taking long breaths in and out. That was my destination of the day. There was nothing else to do but enjoy the beauty, and know that even if I did die by some chance, I was so close to heaven, it would take too long for my soul to go to hell, hence I was heaven bound any ways!

The walk all the way around the lake is a little over 7.5km, and the army boys who lived there said it took them atleast 1hr to do it and they were used to it, which means it would take us mortals around 2hrs. They said many people fainted half way but there was no medical facility there and it was obviously not part of their job to rescue visitors, so the risk was all ours to bear. Having heard all that, I made it to about 2.5km out, where someone could still see me, sat down and enjoyed my views, took some pictures and made my way back to the car.

I noticed that only about a dozen tourist vehicles showed up all morning. The drive kept most people away, plus foreigners weren’t allowed since this was the Indo-China border military base. The lack of people kept the lake pristine and clean, the fresh water that came from snow and ice melting before my eyes was sweet. I didn’t realize then what I realize now: it must be that God (who I haven’t met or talked to yet, so didn’t think He existed) must have placed this strategically so as to keep something for us to learn from. It did bring about serenity and peace to me, and still does when I picture it. An emotionally tiring day, we drove all the way down to Mangan for the night, a six hour drive from Gurudongmar, with a break at Apple Orchard for food and to pick up our bags.

Done with the north for this trip, our destination was the second largest town in Sikkim, west of Gangtok, to Pelling. It was supposed to be where one could see the Kanchenjunga peak in the morning. The drive from Mangan to Pelling is 6.5 hrs. Do not stop to see the ruins of Rabdentse. They are not ruins at all. There may have once been a palace there, but it is definitely totally destroyed, and three foot high walls from stone stand there now, freshly built, out of some one’s imagination of what used to be the floor plan of the palace. What a darned waste of time it was as we went hiking up to this for nothing!! On the other hand, the Buddhist Monastery just outside of Pelling was wonderful with some great art inside. Definitely worth stopping and spending some time here.

Pelling is nothing but a pure commercial touristy town. I hated the rush as I drove in, mad crowds since this was peak season and the start of the flower festival, small roads, vans and tourist vehicles parked everywhere, all hell had broken loose by the evening when I got there. The hotel I booked, Chiminda International, was the worst I could imagine. They showed me a room that was going to be mine; the front desk lady actually opened the door and walked into a smoke filled room even as the man occupying it lay in bed smoking a cigarette, and said that would be mine in an hour. I picked up my bags and set sail out of that town, and headed to Geysing the closest town near it, about half hour down the hill. There I found a hidden pearl of a resort, clean, beautifully tucked away, not over crowded, nice interiors, less than the Chiminda International, helpful staff: Tashigang Resort.

Are you counting the nights and days with me? Including Geysing, that is five nights in five different locations. I promise not to let you down for the rest of the read! Yes, and every day so far has been about 8-10 hours in the car, where our day starts at 5am and ends around 8pm. Yes, I’m tired at this point. No, I did not remember where I slept the night before or what I had for my last meal. But excitement has a way of over shadowing the weariness in one’s body, so I kept going like an energizer bunny.

Day six was to take me down to Barsey, south west point of Sikkim, where I was told there was a second Valley of Flowers. It is again the road less travelled because the road dead ends at Hilay, a village with about ten huts, mostly military ones with solar panels on each, and the walk to Barsey where the rhododendron forest lies is actually around a 6km trek into the forest up a hill. As I got to Barsey, again a 3hr drive from Tashigang Resort in Geysing, I saw three men walking up the path which leads to my destination. They had obviously got there by taxi and the car was long gone. No other cars in sight, I realized this was indeed a remote destination, but I also realized that if there was something worth seeing, there were enough adventurers that would land up here especially since one didn’t need a pass to get there and foreigners were not stopped. So why was it so desolate during season?

The answer was quite simple: the rhododendrons here are not plants five to seven feet tall, but are trees over 30ft to 50ft tall. Why, I thought, what the heck? And they were not blooming right then; there were few flowers left and one could tell the seeds were out already. And the common sense light went off, I think, so here is my explanation for it: up north, Yumthang is filled with snow in the winter and the plants are dead for most of the year. Like Tulips, they come to life in full spring at the sign of first warmth. So those plants re-grow every year and reach only minimum height. Those in the south get to grow all year round and the trees hence formed look like old teak trees, over grown and aged, with moss all over them. It was a beautiful hike and an educational one. The season is obviously at least a month before Yumthang. I imagined the hill filled with them, swore to come back next time, and marveled that my brain could put one and one together for what seemed to be the sanest explanation I could come up with. With no one to disagree, I stand confident!

Night six was a last minute decision that I arrived at because of an honest manager at the Tashigang Resort. He said that it is kind of a joke when people say one can see Mt Kanchunjunga from either Pelling or Yuksom, but Yuksom was definitely more scenic and treks were possible from there. They had a beautiful resort at Yuksom also, actually, it was an awesome one. They also helped arrange a trek within an hour of our getting there. Now that I have been there, I can tell you there are many trekking outfits that cater to all kinds of trekkers- from day treks to eight days up and down the great snow covered peaks, and maybe more. Already 8pm by the time we were ensconced in the hotel in Yuksom, I took the first offer of the longest two day trek possible, 17km or so from Yuksom, an over night stay in a tent at a small village named Sunan Gumpa (Gumpa is a general term for village) estimated at 8hrs including a break for lunch which was arranged by the trekking outfit, and a trek down to our destination Yashiding the next day.

The first 4km or so were brutal, a hike at about 45degree steep up relentlessly, and I thought I wasn’t going to cover the distance. I don’t work out. I am in shape as in I am active, but physical endurance or pushing my body to perfection has never been my thing. Somehow, the monastries, the young children carrying 20kgs with the weight pulled up by their heads, others running up and down as if it were no big deal, and my body crossing the thresh hold of breathlessness into rhythmic beats and motions, I made the distance slow and steady, stopping to enjoy the village life I had not seen until then, and the fresh air that was around me all day. Little did I realize that the sun tans pretty bad even though it seems cool!

We realized it was going to rain and that the next day was a short trek of 4km or so. So we passed on the idea of staying in a tent and carried on to the end of the trek, Tashiding. I am sure glad we did that. Ten minutes after we checked our selves into the Yatri Nivas (the Indian government rest houses which are all over India), it actually rained and hailed so hard, some people that were planning to take the ride back to Yuksom cancelled because landslides are so common and one could hardly see the cliff hanger roads in the rain and hail, and the thunder and lightning conveyed there was no chance of short showers. No power for most of the night, no warm water, we ate good food, thanked them for a clean place to stay and I passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Never to be the one to be chicken, I stayed on course and drove back to Gangtok for the last leg of my trip. That is the first place I was to repeat my over night stay. I thought I had it easy the last two days in Sikkim. A slow start in the morning, relaxed and a the first sit down breakfast in days, the drive to Sikkim was to take around 4.5-5 hours. And it almost did. As luck would have it, it seemed all my super planning was making me avoid any kind of serious weather mishaps and nature needed to let me know who is boss. So five minutes from reaching my destination in Gangtok, four cars ahead of us, there was a landslide, a tree slide, basically the whole side of the mountain came down on to the road, blocking it for hours until the rain stopped and the road was cleared. Would you believe we had to go around another mountain to get to our guesthouse and that took two hours of extra driving!! Ok, so I was doomed to spend atleast 8hrs a day in the car. What was I thinking hoping for less one day?

Because of this delay in travel, my next day’s agenda was pretty screwed. I had to secure a pass for Tsongmo Lake or Changu Lake, about 40km east of Gangtok, at an elevation of 12,400ft. I started late on day nine to get there. I was stuck in a line of around 300 taxi SUVs, actually full sized trucks that carried about eight to ten people in each. Then we were further stuck at 11am because of another landslide. As I looked down the curvy road on the hill, there were these cabs backed up pretty far, and my number was already 206. I looked up and grey clouds were pushing in really fast. Having seen the untouched beauty of Gurudongmar, I just didn’t feel like being bothered with the most touristy sight in Sikkim so I returned to base before further adeu. I spent the rest of what turned out to be the only day that didn’t rain walking downtown and buying handicrafts. That is one of my favorite things to do at such destinations and I had a few things I wanted to get my dear little one, so it was time well spent.

The grand finale was to leave Sikkim in a helicopter, a service run only once a day in a five seater chopper by the Sikkim government, that flies one trip from Gangtok to Bagdogra and back each day. We were too late coming into Bagdogra to catch it on the way in, so we did on the way out. A birds eye view of the mountains, valleys, rivers, windy roads and small villages was an apt conclusion to what has to date been the best trip of my life. Next year, I will be back there, for twice as long so I can include the eight day trek after the visit to the North. Hope some of you will go… or come along!

Key things to know about Sikkim travel:

1. Gangtok is in the south east, hence the weather reports say it is warm in April. Up North, at the snow hills’ feet, it is still freezing although the sun warms it up for a few hours between 10am and 2pm.
2. Most things need passes. Check on which areas allow only Indians and which places need passes before getting there. Take some eight passport pictures along because you need them for the passes. Passes for things like Tsongo Lake are for the particular day, so if you miss that day, you will need another pass for another day.
3. Carry chocolate and some pop or coca cola as the sugar will help in elevations
4. Layer your clothing.
5. We took a Scorpio as our vehicle. You don’t need a 4×4, but a minivan is a stupid idea; bad for the back and not as good as an SUV for shock absorbtion.
6. Carry a sleeping bag. That way, you can stay at a cheaper hotel and not worry about the small heater in the room.
7. Here is the link to the best maps I found on line. The hotel and their trips are bad, but the web information is pretty good and the best I could find: http://www.sikkimonline.com/maps.html
8. There are no local busses in Sikkim.Busses won’t make the curves and bends in the roads, making travel a little expensive, but definitely worth it. 9.Try to give yourself a day’s cushion in case of weather mishaps. It would be a sin to make it all the way to Sikkim and miss something because of the lack of time.

* We found no ATMs outside of Gangtok, definitely none North. Maybe there is one in Pelling, but even in Gangtok, we tried three to find a working one. 

* No landlines, cell phones or internet connections north of Mangan. There is sporadic connection with BSNL some times. For the most part, assume no outside contact as long as you are there.

*There are no medical stores. Take a first aid kit with everything you may need. Hospital is in Gangtok. That’s that.

**** Correction or additional information: I am not sure if this correct or not, but I read in a book given out by India Tourism Department as a traveller’s guide titled “India’s North East: Paradise Unexplored,” that passes are given to foreigners only in major cities and have certain restrictions. The pass is called “Restricted Area Permits”. Try contacting them at contactus@incredibleindia.org for details and information, or let me know if it doesn’t work. ****