I booked a flight to Dehradun to answer the call from Kedarnath which had been tugging at the heart from a couple of years. For about a year, whenever I saw anything about Kedarnath, it was just crowds and the trek seemed arduous in terms of human traffic. This avoided me from taking the plunge. But as they say, if you’re listening keenly to your inner self, it’ll guide you perfectly. The time had come.
My grand mother passed away at a ripe old age on September 25, 2024 and that served as a trigger for me inquire and make the pilgrimage. All flights seemed pretty expensive but there was one which was sub 10k for Tuesday. I booked that and began some online research. Without going into the mystical ways in which things got arranged in terms of booking, I’ll give the practical details here as to how things panned out:
- A lot of the bookings needs to happen online prior to the visit. Firstly, you need to register for the char dham yatra, here: Dham registration.
- Your stay at GMVN (Uttarakhand tourism, government site) also needs to be pre-booked. There are several options from hotels to tents to meditation cave. Browse and book from here.
- In terms of where to start from, let’s consider Rishikesh as the base. Reach Rishikesh or Haridwar from your base location and from here, you can take a cab or bus. Shared taxis are very difficult to find. I booked from Savaari.com and got a good deal for Rishikesh to Sonprayag for INR 6,000.
- Sonprayag is like the base camp for the trek to Kedarnath. The trek officially starts from Gaurikund and there are options to stay at Gaurikund as well but we stayed at Sonprayag.
- GMVN website can again server as your place to book a hotel here. I directly booked via booking.com at Phulwari resort. We booked online for a deluxe tent for about INR 3400 but the same at destination was going in the range of INR 1500-2000. This is because October is almost off season, there’s a fraction of tourists at this time.
- From Sonprayag to Gaurikund, there are shared taxis going for INR 50 rupees for the 5km drive. This is a taxi union and there are tonnes of taxis starting from 3am.
- The trek starts at Gaurikund and this is where you’ll find ponies as well. Helicopter can also be booked. I am not sure of the starting point for the choppers but you can book it from here.
- The entire trek is 16km according to the singposts there but it is atleast 19km according to my phone. We started walking at 7am and reached at about 3.30pm with a couple of breaks in the middle. The total reading for the day showed 27km.
The walk and the experience
Matters of god and divine are beyond reasoning. When there’s a knocking, we need to pay heed to it. The trek to Kedarnath is not the most pristine walks, especially with the hordes of ponies ferrying devotees uphill and downhill. There’s a lot of horse dung all around (folks there keep cleaning every day) but there’s only as much one can do with thousands of pilgrims walking every day.
With this expectation set straight; I’d also like to mention that this isn’t an easy trek by any means. The path is stone paved throughout but it’s a long walk with a 2km altitude gain. Sonprayag is at about 1500m while Kedarnath temple is above 3500m. Some regular physical exercise and training a few weeks before the trek is highly recommended.
One also needs to be prepared with clothing. It dipped till -5 deg C. in the night time and we had a good four layers- thermal, followed by a tshirt, sweater and a jacket. I wore these layers on reaching Kedarnath in the evening but the highlight of the trek for me was to enter the temple compound. Tears of spiritual bliss & contentment rolled like a child being united with its creator. Those 10 minutes on setting eyes on the temple and a few minutes when bowing down again on return made the entire pilgrimage worth it.
Entering the temple for darshan in the evening was also super smooth with the queue being just 10 minutes (usually it is upwards of 2 hours). This is one of the biggest advantages of visiting in October end. There are lots of eating options in Kedarnath- aloo parathas, daal and steaming hot rice have their own divine flavour in the Himalayas. Do carry some protein/energy bars, dried fruits and chocolates.
One more highlight of the trek was being able to spend a night in Rudra Gufa / Meditation Cave / Modi Gufa. This meditation cave is 1.5 km beyond the temple and has a majestic vantage point for the entire Kedarnath region. This cave can be booked on the GMVN site for INR 3400. The cave is extremely well equipped with an attached toilet/bath and a geyser! If you’ve dreamt of staying in a cave, this is your primer to do it.
A beautiful story- Why is Kedarnath called ‘Jagrit Mahadev’?
A few days after the trek, I came across this tweet that shared a beautiful story about Kedarnath which I’d like to reproduce here. This tweet also became an inspiration to jot down this blog post.
Once, a devoted follower of Bhagwan Shiv set out from his village on a pilgrimage to Kedarnath. Back then, there were no transport options, so he had to walk the entire way. Whenever he met someone, he asked for directions to Kedarnath, constantly thinking of Bhagwan Shiva as he walked. Months went by before he finally arrived at Kedarnath Dham.
When he reached, the temple doors were being closed. The Kedarnath temple opens for six months of the year and remains closed for the other six. The man told the priest that he had traveled for months from a far-off place and begged him to let him have a glimpse of Bhagwan Shiv.
However, the rule is strict – once the doors are closed, they cannot be reopened. The priest told him he would have to return in six months. The man was heartbroken. He cried and prayed to Bhagwan Shiv, hoping for a miracle, but no one listened to him.
As night fell, the weather turned colder, and he was left alone, hungry and thirsty. Still, he held faith that Bhagwan Shiva would bless him. Then, he saw an old sage walking toward him. The sage sat beside him, listened to his story, and gave him some food. The sage reassured him, saying that the temple might open in the morning and that he should have faith. As they talked, the man eventually fell asleep.
The next morning, as the first rays of sunlight appeared, he woke up to find that the sage was gone. Just then, the priest arrived with his group, and the man greeted him in surprise, asking why he had come back so soon when the temple was supposed to stay closed for six months.
The priest looked at him, shocked. “I closed the temple doors six months ago and just returned today,” he said. The man was astonished. “But I only arrived yesterday,” he insisted. The priest and his group were speechless – how could anyone survive six months in such cold weather alone?
The man described the sage he had met: tall, with long matted hair, carrying a trident and a damru, dressed in deerskin. Hearing this, the priest and everyone around him fell at the man’s feet, saying, “You are a true devotee. You had the blessing of seeing Bhagwan Shiva himself. With his divine powers, he turned six months into one night for you, rewarding your pure faith and devotion.”
Conclusion- Har Har Mahadev
Well, can there be a conclusion to such continuity? Anyways, people usually spend just one night at Kedarnath but we spent two nights. One in the Him Colony and one in the Rudra Meditation Cave. For me, being based in Tiruvannamalai, the fact that Kedarnath and Arunachaleshwara being on almost the same longitude meant something. A lot of this is hindsight but I think the crux of it all is that the real guru is sitting within us. All external forms show up in our life as a teacher pointing us inwards. With that faith and surrender in the divine, we must keep walking and inquiring to reach the source where it all becomes one.
Om Namah Shivaya.
Om Arunachala.
Om Namo Bhagwate Shri Ramanaya.
Update: I recently came across this earliest image of Kedarnath from 1860! Wow, how the world has changed.
