isha sacredwalks Himalayas trip Day 12

Day 12 was supposed to be just travel to Delhi and the end of the trip. But, some of us, changed our flights from Delhi to Dehradun, so, we got some more time to do some temple visits. Given that it is Navratri, we decided to go to 2 Devi temples, one the Mansa devi temple and the Chandi temple at Haridwar. For both the temples we had to trek for a while. The darshans were a great experience.

View from Mansa devi temple:

View from Chandi devi temple:

isha sacredwalks Himalayas trip Day 11

Early morning view at Hotel Samrat Resort, Rudraprayag.

At Haridwar Har ki Pauri. We did Ganga snan and Ganga Aarti here.

isha sacredwalks Himalayas trip Day 10

Kedarnath temple

Luckily we were able to do Jal abhishek to Kedarnath. It seems just about 2 days before we went, they had opened it for devotees.

We went there and came back through chopper from Guptakashi.

Dhari devi temple

At Dhari devi temple, on the way from Rudraprayag to Haridwar:

isha sacredwalks Himalayas trip Day 9

Badrinath

In front of the Badrinath Temple:

shree Ramanujacharya at the entrance in Badrinath

Alakananda river nearby Badrinath temple:

Other Scenaries at Badrinath:

View at the Badrinath bus stop with Neelakanth, Nar and Narayan mountains:

On the way from Joshimath to Ukhimath:

On the way, we had a tyre puncture of the bus, due to which the bus had to stop for repair. Luckily the bus stopped at the Garur (Garud) Ganga temple, where we had an awesome temple visit and spent some time on the river bank.

isha sacredwalks Himalayas trip Day 8

View in backyard of Monal resort:

On the way from Uttarkashi to Joshimath. The river you see here is the. Bhilangna river that merges into the Bhagirathi at Tehri.

isha sacredwalks Himalayas trip Day 7

On the way from Uttarkashi to Gangotri, near a place where we had breakfast earlier in the day, and lunch later in the day. There was am apple orchard also near that place.

Bhagirathi river at the same place:

Scenaries on the way to Gangotri:

At Gangotri:

On the way back from Gangotri:

isha sacredwalks Himalayas trip Day 6

Early morning view in front of Hotel Samrat Resort in Rudraprayag:

On the way from Rudraprayag to Uttarkashi, we stopped at a beautiful waterfall on the way.

Scenaries from another place on the way where we stopped for tea. The river seen in the below photos in this post is the Bhilangna river that merges into the Bhagirathi river.

View in front of Hotel FCR, where we stopped for lunch:

isha sacredwalks Himalayas trip 2021 day 5

The first half of the day was a break for everyone to recover from the previous day's trek.

In the afternoon, we went to Agastyamuni, the place where sage Agastya did tapasya for many years.

Around sunset time, we went to Rudraprayag sangam point, had an awesome sangam snan there and watched the Ganga Aarti.

Rudraprayag is the confluence of rivers Mandakini and Alakananda. The water from Alakananda, to the left in the picture below, was much more colder than the water from Mandakini towards the right. At the Sangam, we could clearly feel the difference in the temperature of the waters.

isha sacredwalks Himalayas trip 2021 Day 4

View from hotel Madhuganga near Ukhi math:

Since we couldn't visit Kedarnath due to some mess with epasses and local protests by pilgrims who weren't allowed to visit Kedarnath due to court restrictions due to Covid, we visited Tung Nath temple for a trek. The trek was about 3.5 km each way and due to do the steep steps, was pretty strenuous. However, the darshan was a great experience.

On the way to Tung Nath from hotel Madhuganga:

Tung nath temple

At Tung nath, in front of lord Ganesha

Isha sacredwalks Himalayas trip 2021 Day 3

On the road towards Kedarnath from Guptakashi:

On the way to Thumbi aviation Helipad:

Shivalik Valley Resort, Sonprayag:

View of the river Mandakini from the Shivalik Valley Resort:

View of river Mandakini at Sonprayag:

isha sacredwalks Himalayas trip 2021 Day 2 and Day 3 morning

On the way from Haridwar to Guptakashi, before reaching Devaprayag:

Scenes from a hotel near Devaprayag, where we stopped for tea and pakoda:

In between Devaprayag and Rudraprayag, River Alakananda:

Around Hotel Samrat where we had late lunch:

At the Village Retreat where we stayed at night