VoF - July 2017
Using an almost defunct blog. I may not be an active writer any more, but can act as a place holder for such posts, which involves writing...
Drive from Haridwar to Joshimath, with a cheerful driver who can give you scare at times with the cell phone driving literally on the edge over mountains.
You start admiring beauty of hills, like any other hills which we drove around, both self drive and others driving me around like in south or north respectively.
After a while all the hill drives look similar, but you keep tracking the same river, in this case Alaknanda.
We rest for the day on the banks of Alaknanda at Joshimath.
We continue our drive along Alaknanda, towards Badrinath, but get off the highway at GovindGhat. https://www.google.co.in/maps/place/Govind+Ghat/@30.6228087,79.558965,17z/data=!4m13!1m7!3m6!1s0x39a79ad368949d77:0xd47704a7afc60e7a!2sGovind+Ghat,+Uttarakhand+246443!3b1!8m2!3d30.618549!4d79.5617052!3m4!1s0x0:0x7aebb59ad3887222!8m2!3d30.6247383!4d79.5577875
And continue with this journey towards Ghangaria on foot. Recent developments reduced the walk by a couple of kms by a shared jeep ride.
We start our journey at Govind Ghat at around 5700 ft altitude, and start tracing the Lakshman Ganga river which you see in the map.
We can reach the source in a day if adventerous, but we rest at Ghangaria (aka Govind Dham ) at 10,000 ft
So, we gain an altitude of around 4000 ft in 11 km walk...
Just to put things in perspective, the walk between Tirupati and Tirumala is 2300 ft gain in altitude in 8 km.
Ghangaria is a small village which constitutes traveller amenities of all sorts including basic hotels, restaurants, and a gurudwara, because like us who are leisure travellers, it most importantaly caters to requirements of devout sikh piligrims visiting Hemkund Sahib.
We trek to Valley of flowers or just "Valley", which is around 11500 ft.
That is a short 1500 ft difference, and the trek is around 5-7 kms one way.
But you cover that in around 3 kms, because you would walk upto the entrance, and cross over to the valley by crossing a hill. So, the entire altitude gain is in one hill cross.
Then the valley spans across a couple of kms.
Here the way is not accessible by mules as in the case of Govindghat to Ghangaria. It is paved without cement, rocky, and can get tricky walking down.
Google maps can not trace the distance in this case, as it is not a proper road.
Valley of Flowers
Day 0
I would call it Day 0, because you are still not trekking, or is it the "Digital guy" in me, who would start with zero as start :)Drive from Haridwar to Joshimath, with a cheerful driver who can give you scare at times with the cell phone driving literally on the edge over mountains.
You start admiring beauty of hills, like any other hills which we drove around, both self drive and others driving me around like in south or north respectively.
After a while all the hill drives look similar, but you keep tracking the same river, in this case Alaknanda.
We rest for the day on the banks of Alaknanda at Joshimath.
Day 1
The real deal starts here.We continue our drive along Alaknanda, towards Badrinath, but get off the highway at GovindGhat. https://www.google.co.in/maps/place/Govind+Ghat/@30.6228087,79.558965,17z/data=!4m13!1m7!3m6!1s0x39a79ad368949d77:0xd47704a7afc60e7a!2sGovind+Ghat,+Uttarakhand+246443!3b1!8m2!3d30.618549!4d79.5617052!3m4!1s0x0:0x7aebb59ad3887222!8m2!3d30.6247383!4d79.5577875
And continue with this journey towards Ghangaria on foot. Recent developments reduced the walk by a couple of kms by a shared jeep ride.
We start our journey at Govind Ghat at around 5700 ft altitude, and start tracing the Lakshman Ganga river which you see in the map.
We can reach the source in a day if adventerous, but we rest at Ghangaria (aka Govind Dham ) at 10,000 ft
So, we gain an altitude of around 4000 ft in 11 km walk...
Just to put things in perspective, the walk between Tirupati and Tirumala is 2300 ft gain in altitude in 8 km.
Day 2
As you see in google maps, Lakshman ganga as a river doesn't appear in map anymore near you, but we are still trying to tace its source.Ghangaria is a small village which constitutes traveller amenities of all sorts including basic hotels, restaurants, and a gurudwara, because like us who are leisure travellers, it most importantaly caters to requirements of devout sikh piligrims visiting Hemkund Sahib.
We trek to Valley of flowers or just "Valley", which is around 11500 ft.
That is a short 1500 ft difference, and the trek is around 5-7 kms one way.
But you cover that in around 3 kms, because you would walk upto the entrance, and cross over to the valley by crossing a hill. So, the entire altitude gain is in one hill cross.
Then the valley spans across a couple of kms.
Here the way is not accessible by mules as in the case of Govindghat to Ghangaria. It is paved without cement, rocky, and can get tricky walking down.
Google maps can not trace the distance in this case, as it is not a proper road.
Day 3
The tougher part, we trace the Lakshman ganga, and climb is pretty straight forward, you climb the mountain where the river is flowing, by the river on your right side, and at one point, you cross the river (this season it was still frozen glacier over the valley)
and continue to climb.
The top of the mountain is the lake (Kund) where Guru Gobing Singh has meditated. There is a Gurudwara, and you get great food there at the langar. Khichdi, tea etc.
And, there is a Lakshmana temple beside the temple, where Lakshmana has meditated before Guru Gobind Singh, and hence the name "Lakshman Ganga" for the river.
It is the overflow of this lake which is forming the lakshman ganga river. Both ascend and descent are tough for "not so fit" people like us :)
Hemkund is at 14,100 ft altitude, and hence a 4000+ altitude gain in 7 km.
Compare that with 4000 ft gain in 11 kms on Day1. Its a lot more steeper, and there are minimal breathers like flat stretches.
Day4
Repeat of Day1. While Day2, 3 you do ascend and descned on same day, we get to do only ascend on Day1 and only Descend on Day4.
Back to Govind Ghat and take a van ride on the highway to the "last village in India" 2 kms after Badrinath, and have a darshan of Badrinath on the return.
Trace the route back to Joshimath by road, visiting Vishnu Parayag on the way.
Day5
We see other Prayags on the way down to Rishikesh. (remember, we saw Vishnu Prayag on Day4)
Prayag is a confluence of a major river.
The common one in all these is Alaknanda river.
Finally at the 5th Prayag of the panch prayags, Alaknanda and Bhagirathi merge and will now be called "Ganga" the holiest.
