Panchtarni - second stop of Amarnath yatra





Panchtarni  is the place you want to reach earliest if you are taking the Helicopter service to Amarnath.


It is believed that Shiva when he was taking Parvati to a inaccessible location to share the Devarashiyam of Immortality left  each of his accompaniments that adorned him at one one place.  In here he is believed to have left behind the 5 elements before proceeding to Amarnath Cave.

In the Baltal route - you start your walking/trekking or taking a horse or a dholi from Baltal.   But if you are taking an Helicopter your starting point is Neelgrath. The helicopter drops you at Panchtarni   From here to Amarnath you need to cover a distance of 6kms.  Not everyone is lucky to have the blessings of Bhole Nath that you climb down the Helicopter and go to Amarnath Cave have the darshan of Ice ling come back and take the Helicopter and fly down to Sonmarg all on the same day.  So this is an essential base camp for those that need a stay.

The whole area is under the control of Para military forces and the access gate to the path to Amarnath is opened  strictly between 5.00am in the morning to 3.00pm in the evening.  

There are lots of temporary tents available for rent for yatris to stay.  The mobile toilets are kept at various locations for the yatris.  Hot water is available at a price of Rs  5 per bucket. The langars provide free food for all pilgrims through out the day. Ofcourse there are lots and lots of small shops selling all kinds of things starting from toothpaste and toothbrush to monkey caps to wooden walking sticks chips cool drinks etc...  

For reaching Amarnath you have  the options of trekking, horses and dholi   the dholi here is a plastic chairs tied to 2 wooden stout poles kept parallel.  At the front and back 2 wooden poles are tied perpendicular to these poles.  There are 4 men who carry the dholi.  The fifth person helps these 4 people through difficult terrains 

The pathway to Amarnath Cave is to climb the steep mountain all the way to the top which is the Sangam point.  This is point where the yatris walking up from Baltal also join.  Then everyone climbs down the mountain to reach the glacier where the temporary plastic sheeted tents welcome the yatris.  The horses are stopped here.  And only yatris on foot or dholi are allowed to proceed towards Amarnath Cave.

Swami Vivekanda stayed here during his yatra to Amarnath.  Sister Niveditha describes how Swamiji took bath in each of the 5 rivulets despite the chilling cold before starting to Amarnath. 

Starting the yatra at the very beginning of the opening slot what we were experiencing was very very hot weather.  I even got sun burns on my shoulder and neck.  But the night time drops to less than 10 and tents provides you with a cot pillow and a good comforter only.  You need to have winter wear to help you keep warm during the nights.  But I understand that later during end July and August even here it is freezing cold that you experience.



From Wikipedia 

Panchtarni is a locality in Anantnag district of the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. It is a popular pilgrimage and tourist destination on the way to Amarnath Temple near the Amarnath Glacier in Himalayas.

 It is located 40 kilometres (25 mi) from Pahalgam base camp and 15 kilometres  ahead of last halt camp of Sheshnag Lake in the north. It is a meadowland on the banks of eponymous Panchtarni River where five glacier-fed tributary streams meet in eponymous Panchtarni Valley surrounded by snow-capped mountains at an altitude of 11,500 feet (3,500 m). It is also the final helicopter drop off for the Amarnath yatra pilgrims, who have to trek the rest of the 6 kilometres journey either on foot or by mule from this camp.

#panchtarni

#Helicoptertoamarnath

#Amarnathyatra








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Giving back to Society

When I joined Rotary Club of Chennai Thiruvanmiyur , I didnt understand what changes a club can make to somebody unknown. Our club had taken up Adult Literacy program in a very remote village near Pondi , which is quite far away from our city. While the project objectives were good, the distance and the way the then President had taken this project unilaterally, made all of us not to think too much of it. But a Project is a Project done with a Goodness. This is a such a remote village, where the main occupation of the people is fishing in the nearby Pondi reservoir . That is also halted when the Krishna waters comes into the reservoir . When the program was started it was with reluctance that the people joined. The President came up with the idea to give one kg of rice to the people who are attending the program, whenever he visited them. That became the great motivator as for people who dont know when their next meal will be or where it will come from - it became a boon
Read more

IT SME FORUM

About 7 months back a group of Entrepreneurs from Chennai who had a common thread of running their software companies got togehter to form a cohesive group - The IT SME FORUM - as a Strategy to accelerate their individual growth through synergy. Each one of these entrepreneurs are successfully running their software companies fighting individual battles to keep the company up and running, maintain a steady growth rate, increase their customer base, etc. Running a company in India is not a easy task - it is literally getting pulled in thousands of direction and believe me - A business leader is supposed to concentrate only on Growth - Marketing - Sales. But I have found that typically in the Indian environ, we get pulled into operations and managing to spend some time for the most crucial aspect of the business. This gave rise to the idea - why not have a platform to share the best practices, to learn how to tackle problems, get a better voice and get a big bandwidth in terms of out rea
Read more
Thanks to Aravind who wanted me to write about the Temple at thiruvotriyur in chennai. that was one of those days when you get up early in morning and the whole world looks very frustrating and you dont know what to do. it became a God send message to me. So started my preparation to go the temple. I reside in the south chennai and the the Temple is at Thiruvotriyur in North Chennai. and the travel time will be more than 1.30 hours. So we started at 10.30 and reached around 11.45. The temple closes at 12 noon after the mid day pooja. What a divine visit it was. I came back so calm and filled with energy. This is a Shiva temple and the God is known as Tyagarajar, Adipureeswarar and Padampakka Nathar. The main deity is said be in the form of Lingam formed of Mud which is covered with Golden cover sheet. Once a year during Karthik Poornima, the Gold cover is removed and the necessary abishekam is performed and the once again the Lingam is covered with all the medicinal materials. His conc
Read more