[wanderernomad]

Originally Posted by saket77

Thank you sir for your reply. Sikkim is my Plan B in case I don't have access to Uttarakhand & particularly Harsil. The main main reason going in favour of UK is that I want to see the Ganges there. Not for religious reasons, but just out of curiosity. Have seen the Ganges in Kolkata, Patna, Varanasi but wanted to have a look at its origin. I think it should be a great experience. What can be better if if I can see some snow in the process!

Saket in that case come to this area around End May or early June. It would be more rewarding. For snow stick to your plan B. You will find each trip more fulfilling while keeping it simple and uncomplicated as to the ends sought to be achieved.

[saket77]

Originally Posted by wanderernomad

Saket in that case come to this area around End May or early June. It would be more rewarding. For snow stick to your plan B. You will find each trip more fulfilling while keeping it simple and uncomplicated as to the ends sought to be achieved.

Thank you sir! I just booked my tickets to siliguri! Planned for Gangtok finally, & if possible will look into if I can visit Bhutan from there. Thanks a lot. Will surely post about my travel once I am back.

Regards,
Saket.

[mobike008]

Originally Posted by RM Motorsports

Hello Friends

I visited Auli in February. Trip was purely to experience and learn Skiing.

Thanks for sharing those pictures, I was in Auli last week and can totally relate to the pictures you shared. My pictures will come up via. a travelogue in a week or two from now.

Update on Road Conditions

Delhi to Nainital : Pretty much a breeze

Nainital to Joshimath : This indeed was a challenge and now i know why many folks here thought its not a doable stretch. We did a very early morning start ( imagine doing that in 3C-4C temparatures) at 6:45am from Nainital and for the first two hours everyone of us in the car where freezing cold with our hands and feet numb.

I do not recall the exact route we have taken, will have to look at some of the road pictures we have taken to understand but, all i can say it was via. the Ranikhet and Gopeshwar route. Neither us nor our driver knew the route so we ended up taking a few wrong turns. out of the 300kms, I would say about 100kms there is practically no roads and we were averaging almost 15kms-20kms per hour on these roads.

Despite all these hurdles we reached our GMVN guest house in Joshimath at around 7:30pm

Joshimath to Auli (15kms) : This is a very narrow road with lots of snow on and side of the road, it took us an hour to get up to GMVN Auli due to getting stuck a couple of times with a truck coming from opposite side.

Auli to Syal Sur (130kms) : This was done through Auli-Joshimath-Helang-Gulabkoti-Pipalkoti-Mayasur-Bhimtalla-Rudraprayag-Syal Sur

We lost our route on this section also a couple of times as NOBODY has heard about Syal Sur......It was a tough time to get to GMVN guesthouse as none of the localities could guide us and as usual the GMVN numbers were not working.

However, this is an awesome place to stay

Chopta was flipped out of our itenary as all roads to it were closed due to snow.

Syal Sur to Kaudiyala (125kms) : This route was done via. Rudraprayag-Agastyamuni to Kaudiyala and the roads were quite decent considering it was all mountains and we must have covered this distance in 4.5 hours

Kaudiyala-Rishikesh-Haridwar-Delhi (285kms) : We started at 10am and reached home in evening around 7pm with a 2 hours break at Rishikesh. Horrible traffic on this route

[mainakit87]

Hi

I am planning to do the same route in Feb 2016. My plan
Delhi-->Nainital-->Binsar-->Chopta-->Auli-->Rishikesh-->Delhi.

Can anyone advise me about self driving on these roads. I have roughly 70000 Km experience driving in and around Bangalore, Kolkata and also the hills of South India. I am planning to take a self drive Figo for this tour.

Off late I heard that Chopta might be closed due to snow conditions. Any latest reports?

By the way, I have 10 days to get this done

[Highh5]

Hi Folks,

Will be Leaving for Auli the day after tomorrow from Ghaziabad. Any update on the route conditions if anyone has done this circuit recently.

The route will be :

Ghaziabad - Meerut - Muzzafarnagar - Haridwar - Rishikesh - Srinagar - Rudraprayag - Karnaprayag - Joshimath - Auli

Let me know if someone got a suggestion. Thank you!

[YD14]

Originally Posted by Highh5

Hi Folks,

Will be Leaving for Auli the day after tomorrow from Ghaziabad. Any update on the route conditions if anyone has done this circuit recently.

The route will be :

Ghaziabad - Meerut - Muzzafarnagar - Haridwar - Rishikesh - Srinagar - Rudraprayag - Karnaprayag - Joshimath - Auli

Let me know if someone got a suggestion. Thank you!

I recently travelled on Devprayag - Delhi road. The road is in great condition and you will enjoy driving on it; wide and smooth roads. You can reach Srinagar in 6 to 7 hours of time driving at a leisurely pace. Almost every city has a bypass and the road through Haridwar is basically a very long flyover with a access roads connected to it. At a few spots along the road some work is going on related to Char Dham Mahamarg project but these are far too few. Beyond Srinagar I haven't driven on the roads personally but my friends who have travelled on it say that it is mostly good.

Another tip, if you do not want to go inside Rishikesh you can bypass it. Google does not show this route as it appears longer but after you figure in traffic inside Rishikesh it is actually quicker. You need to take the left road at Shayampur Police Chowki, go straight to Bhadrakali chowk and then take left turn back towards Rishikesh Tehri road.

[Highh5]

Originally Posted by YD14

Another tip, if you do not want to go inside Rishikesh you can bypass it. Google does not show this route as it appears longer but after you figure in traffic inside Rishikesh it is actually quicker. You need to take the left road at Shayampur Police Chowki, go straight to Bhadrakali chowk and then take the left turn back towards Rishikesh Tehri road.

Thank you for the tip you added, it does help me in bypassing Rishikesh which I never did earlier while passing through that region. Actually, I drove till Guptakashi in Oct'21 for Kedarnath Darshan. So, I was aware of the road conditions till Rudraprayag. I wanted to know more about the road condition post Rudraprayag on the way to Joshimath/Auli. Apologies for not being specific in my earlier posts.

Since I have done both the routes now, to Kedarnath and Auli within these six months. I will add a few pointers for fellow bhpians.

If you are travelling towards Joshimath/Auli
From Rudraprayag to Joshimath, Road starts getting narrow and a lot of construction is going on due to which either one has to wait till the way is cleared off or there is just a way for one car to pass at one time.
From Joshimath to Auli, there is a 16 km hike on a narrow and not so well-paved road. When I say narrow, you have to plan to pass through the vehicles coming from the opposite direction. Try to give way to vehicles who are climbing up.
There is parking for 25-30 cars, once you reach Auli.
During winter, you can reach Auli only via Ropeway from Joshimath. The road is completely blocked due to snow mostly from December end to Feb End.

If you are travelling towards Kedarnath
Roads till Augustmuni were fine. But thereafter, they are not in great shape.
From there till Guptakashi, roads started getting narrower and a lot rough as well. Looking at the condition, I can sense that roads will be a lot bumpy if one travels till Sonprayag.
Since my helicopter ride was from Guptakashi, I travelled there only.

Try to take a break at Samrat Hotel just before Rudraprayag after Rishikesh. Very good food, ample space for parking, service was a little bit slow but manageable. Post that, there will be fewer restaurants and more small Dhaba kind of setups which will be a hit or miss.

[izzikio_rage]

Have the roads from delhi to Auli improved over the years? Planning to drive on the delhi - Rishikesh - Auli stretch at the end of the year. How bad is it after rishikesh? What is the snow situation like?

[Shreyans_Jain]

Originally Posted by izzikio_rage

Have the roads from delhi to Auli improved over the years? Planning to drive on the delhi - Rishikesh - Auli stretch at the end of the year. How bad is it after rishikesh? What is the snow situation like?

Just returned from Badrinath. Roads are good till Rudraprayag, but are pretty bad thereafter. Lots of landslides and broken patches galore. It is time consuming and tiring. Also, the traffic at Rishikesh is an absolute pain. If you want the white winter experience, you’ll be better off going to Himachal.

[izzikio_rage]

Any other suggestions for road trip locations that have good roads. Manali is already in the list and the roads are mostly amazing (speaking from experience)