Description

After much discussion, we decided that our last week of April timing was appropriate for fording the Bhagirathi River at Chirbasa.

Much excitement ensued amongst the porters but everyone and everything with the exception of one ski pole made it across.

From this point on, there was no defined trail.

We continued up the river valley until the terminal moraines of the Bhrigupanth Glacier. The stone slopes were slow and tedious but gave way to easier rock glacier hiking.

We found a suitable basecamp site low on the glacier however a better meadow location would be approximately 1km NW below Manda. From our BC site (the apex of this track) we were able to ferry loads up to an ABC just before the major icefall of the Bhrigupanth Glacier. Returning to Gangotri after our time in BC, we descended more directly to the cable car crossing at Bhojwasa as fording the river at Chirbasa was no longer a practical option!