Ski Expedition to the Garhwal Himalaya

In Spring 2022, I was joined by Tom Peiffer, Paul Greenwood, and Justen Bruns for an exploratory ski expedition to the Uttarkashi Region of the Indian Himalaya. This guidebook shows how we moved though the area!

Our trip started with a marathon flight to Delhi, India. Coming from Vancouver, BC, it's one of the longest non-stop flights you can take! We found ourselves on a bus, first to the town of Rishikesh, and then into the mountains. Our first real stop was Uttarkashi. Here we got above the air pollution that plagues the lowlands and got our first view of the Himalaya! We also got out for a jog around town to stretch our legs.

Our next stop was the village of Gangotri. This is a small tourist village near the headwaters of the sacred Ganges River. We took time here to acclimatize to the altitude and familiarize ourselves with the area. We made several acclimatization hikes in the surrounding valleys and towards our base camp.

With gear sorted and porters loaded up, we trekked to our basecamp on the Bhrigupanth Bamak (glacier). From here we made several forays into the mountains. A heatwave had melted almost all the snow both here on the glacier and up on the face we hoped to ski. We skied a couloir (the Col) near our camp and made a strong attempt to climb Manda II but were turned around due to warm conditions and objective hazard.

Overall, a beautiful area with incredible people. I can't wait to go back!