Deoria Tal: Trek to a little known lake in the Himalayas

August 25 was a long weekend with a 3-day holiday, and I vanished from civilization to meet my old faithful mountains and valleys again. 

My destination, Deoria Tal (Gods' and Goddesses' Lake), involved almost a day of  continuous travel one-way, in which time I used an auto rickshaw, two shared taxis, a flight, a train, two buses, with the final stretch being a long walk. 

I flew from Hyderabad to Delhi in the night, caught the Nanda Devi train to Haridwar at midnight, took a bus from Haridwar to get to Rudraprayag at 11 a.m, another bus to reach Ukhimath at 2 p.m., and a shared taxi that took me to Sari village at 3:00 p.m. Finally, I walked up to reach Deoria Tal by 5:30 p.m.

Looking down on Sari village

Myth has it that this is the lake where the Yaksha asked his famous questions of Yudhistra - the eldest of the Pandavas of the Hindu Epic, Mahabharata, written by Dwaipayana Vyasa.

One of Yudhistra's answers still resonates in my mind - "Day after day countless creatures are going to the abode of Yama, yet those that remain behind believe themselves to be immortal. What can be more wonderful than this?"

From right to left, you can see Chaukhamba, Janhukut, Mandakini, Sumeru, Kharchakhund, Kedarnath and Bhartekunta peaks in full glory when the skies opened up briefly just for me!

Reflections in the pool, with grass piercing the clouds.

This is the tent that I slept in, overnight (available for rent at Deoria Tal). 

I met Vagesh from Jharkhand very briefly as the only other soul at Deoria Tal, and he shared some biscuits with me. He was a very interesting young man, who was on a longer tour of Uttarakhand solo like me. I recommended that he go to Pindari glacier, and I do hope he made it there!


On Saturday, I walked down to Sari Village. From there, I paid for a pillion ride to Chopta to try and summit Chandrashila.

A waterfall on my way from Sari to Chopta.

Chandrashila is one of the well known peaks of the Himalayas and an easy climb of around 4-5 hours. It has brilliant views of the surrounding peaks, but Juky  - August is the worst season, with cloudy weather and the South-West Monsoon at its peak here.

I attempted to climb up to Tungnath, the highest Shiva temple at 3,680 m. and from there to Chandrashila peak. Tungnath is one of the Panch Kedars (five most sacred Shiva temples) in Uttarakhand, but holds little interest for me since I am an atheist.

Another view of the waterfall on my way from Sari to Chopta from where I began trekking. It was raining, and the leaves had put on their brightest green dresses for me, with the waters a beckoning white in the dark forests.

Alone in the clouds, on the great journey to heaven. A thought struck me that the mythical Yudhistra must have felt this way, alone (but for a dog)

The cult of  Shiva-Parvati (lingam-yoni) interests me since it has more in common with the male-female, Yin-Yang of Taoism, Donyi-Polo religion of Arunachal, and I wonder when it got assimilated into the Vedic religion. The Rig Veda mentions only Rudra as a minor god, and Shiva rarely mentioned is used as an adjective ("kind") for various assorted deities like Indra.

Almost having reached Tungnath, I abandoned the trek to Chandrashila because of heavy cloud cover and rain limiting visibility down to barely 50 meters. None of the mountain peaks of the Himalayas would be visible from the top.

Another waterfall on my way back from Chopta to Sari.

I trekked back to Chopta and then rode back to Sari village. By the time I reached Sari the incessant rain seeped through my Novadry pants, and my teeth were chattering with cold and I didn't even realize until I got down, that ice-cold rain had also seeped into my underwear.

I spent the night at Sari village. I got up at 5:30 a.m. on Sunday, reached Haridwar by evening, took the train back to Delhi, then the flight on Monday morning to Hyderabad, and was in office by 11 a.m.