Duration : 4 days, 3 nights
Starting Location : Rishikesh, Uttarakhand
Destination : Auli Laga Joshimath, Uttarakhand
Mode of Travel : Bike (Rented from Rishikesh)
Route : Rishikesh (U. K.) -> Devprayag (U. K.) -> Rudraprayag (U. K.) -> Karnaprayag (U. K.) -> Chamoli (U. K.) -> Joshimath (U. K.) -> Auli (U. K.) -> Joshimath (U. K.) -> Chamoli (U. K.) -> Karnaprayag (U. K.) -> Rudraprayag (U. K.) -> Devprayag (U. K.) -> Rishikesh (U. K.)
Background
This trip was spontaneous. We as a whole got exhausted and chose to go for some good times. This time, we thought of some winter fun and made a beeline for Auli, Uttarakhand.
This time we didn’t had any reservations, but decided to go anyway. We 4 (Ankur Nishad, Pranjal Tiwari, Himanshu Pandey and Me) are travelling from Lucknow and 1 other friend (Pranshant) was reaching directly to Rishikesh. So this is how we traveled full night from Lucknow to Haridwar.
From Haridwar, we took neighborhood movement to reach Rishikesh, from where we leased our bikes. 2 Himalayan, our most loved and 1 Avenger Prashant was not comfortable in riding heavy bike. Before long we finished formalities and began off towards Auli.
Day 1 (Rishikesh to Rudraprayag)
We all were very tired next day. None of got good sleep. Soon expectation of a great bike trip took away all of our sleepiness. We got into local auto to reach Rishikesh and headed straight to get our bikes.
Unlucky for us, bikes were not in good condition, not even serviced. We couldn’t do anything at that time, except get bikes and get on road.
You generally get an excite driving on hills. Hills on one side and river on other, idealize escape from occupied city life. Our pleasure couldn’t continue for long as break in one to bikes failed. We were around 20-30KM from Rishikesh so we call the individual from where we took bikes. He send in his guyz with Thunderbird and pack to settle the issue. We needed to trade Himalayan for Thunderbird as they were not ready to settle the breaks. Breaks of Thunderbird were additionally not very good and soon we needed to get them settled.
Apart from this, street was smooth. With grand magnificence all around.
We crossed Srinagar (in Uttarakhand) in evening and as it was at that point getting dull, chose to remain at Rudraprayag. There was a check post in the fringe of Rudraprayag, checking all leased bikes, and they halted us.
Reason was, we didn’t had commercial vehicle. Our bikes were enrolled for individual utilize so leasing that is an violation. He seized bikes and request that we return. We seemed to be stuck in an unfortunate situation that time!
ARTO officer, who stopper us that time, was great. He was talking professionally and even offered us coffee. After discourse of around 30 min or thereabouts, he conceded to issuing Ticket to individual we contracted biked from and let us go. It was entirely unexpected experience, exceptionally when you are from UP. Police releasing you without taking any cash :P. We requested a pic which he obliged 🙂 (third in underneath pic from right)
After that we started discussing for a place to stay. Hearing this he asked nearby guest house owner to provide us place to stay, that too in discounted rates. In the end, it was really nice that he stopped us 🙂
We stayed in that guest house that night with nominal charges and discussed turn of events we had. All luck? or there are some good people in this world!
Day 2 (Rudraprayag to Joshimath to Auli)
Next morning we started off early as we wanted to reach Auli in time.
It was a nice cold morning and really good weather to drive. May be a bit too cold for our liking but we enjoyed early morning ride. You can clearly hear roaring sound of bike engine across the silent sky.
We covered good distance in morning riding alongside Alaknanda river. Stopped somewhere in middle to have some brunch and then moved on towards Joshimath.
We reached Joshimath before evening and got one room. After freshening up, we decided to explore and headed towards Auli without any of our luggage.
There are rope ways which take you from base of Auli to snow/skiing point. While exploring that, we came to know about campaign in high altitudes. We didn’t had any time to go back and take our stuff as rope ways stops in dark, around 5 PM. We all decided to go up campaign even though we didn’t had any warm cloths to survive freezing temperatures.
View at top was awesome. Forgetting all the worries of how we will sustain freezing temperature at night, we enjoyed and took some great pictures.
There was a man made lake, intended to shield water from solidifying around evening time. Perspective of glorious Himalayas was astounded. You can see numerous hues changing while sun is going down.
We were so engrossed in enjoying nature that we forgot the way towards our camps and soon darkness engulfed around us. We searched for good 1 hour and couldn’t find our camps. It was late and we were freezing. Somehow one call gone though and we found the way towards our camps.
Camp was nice and we had sleeping bags but that was not helping us much. We all were shivering and just praying for night to be over soon. When we were called for dinner, we couldn’t think of going out. Somehow we managed to put our will together and came out of camps for dinner. It was already below zero degree with strong cold winds. Can’t remember how we finished out dinner, may be just few seconds, and packed our self inside camps.
Day 3 (Auli to Rudraprayag)
Next morning the great Himalayas welcomed us with a warm smile and bright sunshine. Still temperature was freezing but sun light gave us some hope.
View from camp was just great and you can not hope for a better morning 🙂
Walking around was still not that easy, but we explored nearby area. Had some tea besides fire. No one wanted to leave spot as it was too cold elsewhere.
It was time for some Skiing, for which we came so far. We got our gears and started climbing towards top. Not all of us made till top and out of 5, only 4 reached till Skiing area. Prashant gave up in mid and stayed there waiting for us to return 😛
Skiing was not that tough. You have to make sure you legs stays together 😛Also there is no stop button, just lean on one side to slow down the momentum. After initial falls, we started doing good and enjoyed some snow fun.
Skiing was tiresome. We had to go back uphill climbing with Skiing gears everytime we come down Skiing. This goes on till we got tired. Soon it was time to get back and start our return journey.
Rest of the return journey that day was uneventful. We drove at some good speed to reach Rudraprayag before night and choose the same guest house, where we stayed while going to Auli, for night’s stay.
We had good night’s sleep compared to cold night at camps other day 😛
Day 4 (Rudraprayag to Rishikesh)
When on a road trip, its best to leave early in the morning. You can avoid traffic and enjoy morning beauty, like this.
It was still pretty cold so we were stopping at every source of heat 😉
There are always some unwanted things happen on a road trip. In our case, I ran out of fuel. Ankur Nishad went ahead in search of Petrol pump. Got some petrol in a bottle and then Ankur NIshad, along with Himanshu, came back to me. It was extra round trip for good 25 KM.
After that incident nothing much happened and we reached Rishikesh safely. Handed tickets (Chalan) to bike renter. He didn’t deducted any amount, so all good in the end.
Afterwords
We reached Rishikesh by noon so we had time to spent. We decided to spent extra time by the banks of riven Ganga, at Haridwar.
Again, water was freezing but we decided to take a dip anyhow. You have to be careful in these places for you belongings while bathing. Ankur Nishad was too careful 😛 He hanged his camera bag on his shoulder and soon forgot that. We all started searching for it 🙂 It was good scary 5 minutes before we realized the situation. We all had a good laugh about it later on.
We got on to train in night and reached Lucknow next morning safely. And yes we had reservations this time 🙂
