Same mountain, second visit — and a shortcut almost nobody walks.
Quick Facts
| Altitude | 4,329 m — the world’s highest Gurdwara |
| Also called | Lokpal |
| Base village | Ghangaria / Govind Dham, 3,050 m |
| Road head | Govindghat → Pulna (4 km by cab) |
| Trek | Pulna → Ghangaria 9–10 km · Ghangaria → Hemkund 6 km, steep |
| Season | Late May to early October |
| Ardaas | 12:00 noon, daily |
| Permits | Tourist Care Uttarakhand registration, mandatory |
| Nearest airport | Jolly Grant, Dehradun (~300 km) |
| This trip | 19–25 August 2026, peak monsoon |
The Bus Died at Karnaprayag
Five in the morning, Mumbai. The 7:40 flight landed at Dehradun on time, 10:10. A 20-seater was waiting, we took the group photo, and drove off feeling like the hard part was over.
It wasn’t.
Past Devprayag a road block held us over an hour — long enough that we gave up and ate lunch at a restaurant beside the jam. Then, somewhere after Karnaprayag, the accelerator went. Twenty-five kilometres an hour, no more. Wet mountain road, dark, and thirteen tired men doing the arithmetic. Midnight, said Google Maps. Later, said the bus.
What saved the trip had already happened, weeks earlier, in Mumbai.
Our plan document carried one line: if the road is slow or blocked, take a fallback night at Joshimath or Pipalkoti rather than driving the last stretch in the dark. We’d also agreed, in advance, what to sacrifice if we fell behind — Badrinath first, Valley of Flowers next, Mussoorie last, Hemkund never.
So at Chamoli we stopped. Hareli Retreat, five rooms, 10:45 pm. No debate, nobody sulking. The plan had already decided for us.
Agree your cut list before you leave home, not at 11 pm in a broken bus.
Why I Went Back
I’d been to Hemkund Sahib in August 2023. I’d written about it. I had the photos. So why again?
To visit Gurdwara Shri Hemkund Sahib and take the blessings of Guru Babaji — and Shri Lokpal Lakshman Mandir, a few metres away on the same sarovar.
And because Hemkund is a place many people only dream of reaching. There’s a peace at that lake I cannot describe to you. You have to stand there.
There was a second reason I only understood on the way up. The first visit and the second are not the same journey. In 2023 I came with my running group — trained people, used to distance. In 2026 I came with thirteen friends from my own neighbourhood. That changed everything.
Day 1: Reading the River Backwards
Some things you only notice the second time.
We crossed all five Panch Prayag in a day — Devprayag, Rudraprayag, Karnaprayag, Nandprayag, Vishnuprayag. Driving to Hemkund is reading the Alaknanda backwards, from her widest to her thinnest. And she isn’t called Ganga until Devprayag, where she finally meets the Bhagirathi. Everything below that is the river before she has her name.
Chai at Rana Bhojanalay near Pauli Devi, where I photographed a common sailer on the railing — a butterfly you find at 900 metres and never see again once you climb.
We passed Dhari Devi without stopping, which felt odd, because I’d written a whole piece about her in 2023. That’s the second visit in one sentence: the first trip collects places, the second gets somewhere.
Day 2: Chamoli to the Trailhead
Up at 6:20, out for a stroll before anyone else. Chai on the bank of the Alaknanda, fog low in the valley, the river loud and grey with silt. Good enough that I ordered another half cup.
A forced halt had bought me a riverside morning the plan never would have.
Bus repaired. We’d said 8:30, we left at 8:35 — not bad for a group that had broken down at midnight.
On the way, a landslide already cleared with a fresh single-lane bypass paved through it. No stopping. Narsingh Mandir at Joshimath, Badrinath’s winter seat, passed without going in. Then Vishnuprayag, where I leaned over and shot straight down into the gorge.
For photographers: forget the two-coloured-rivers shot at the prayags. In monsoon the silt load is so heavy both rivers run identical grey-white. Come after the rains for that one.
Govindghat by noon. Tea, luggage locked at Hotel Mangal Tara, day bags packed. No bus reaches Pulna — the road is too narrow — so we called cabs. Cabs 12:30, Pulna 12:42, walking 12:50.
The back of Mangal Tara looks straight down at the Alaknanda meeting the Lakshman Ganga. This is the handover. Everything we’d driven beside for two days ends here. From now on you turn your back on the big river and follow a small stream up its own valley, on foot, because nothing else goes further.
The Old Trail
At 3:15 I stopped for a lemon juice and asked the shopkeeper which way to go. He said take the old trail.
Nobody else in my group of thirteen knew it existed.
The new trail was rebuilt and widened after the 2013 floods — it bypasses the washed-out sections on newer steel and concrete bridges near Bhyundar, wider and better graded. Every pony goes this way. Most pilgrims too.
The old trail holds the original line along the riverbank. Older footbridges, stone-cut steps, narrow and rough in places after rain. Horses aren’t allowed. It rejoins the main route a few metres past the new bridge.
It’s shorter. It saved me time in 2023 and again in 2026.
But that isn’t the reason to take it.
The new trail is infrastructure. It moves pilgrims and ponies efficiently, and that’s all it does. The old trail is a village road. There are houses on it. There’s a Mata temple on it — I read the name and can’t recall it, and I couldn’t find it anywhere online afterwards, which tells you how far off the map this path is.
Past the old bridge, standing at a shop with a cup of chai, I watched two women step out of the bushes. I asked where they’d come from. From the farms, they said. They were walking home.
That’s the difference. On the new trail you see pilgrims. On the old one you see Bhyundar as a place where people live. Those houses looked occupied year-round — families up there through winter, after the Gurdwara shuts and the yatra stops and every shop closes. Five months of a valley that belongs to itself.
Two Things I Got Wrong
The bag. Everyone handed their luggage to the pithu. Two of them stopped in the shade specifically to do it and told me to hand mine over.
I said I’d carry my own. It was a laptop bag. I carried it 10 kilometres uphill.
By the 8-kilometre mark my back and shoulders were burning. I reached Hotel Kuber Annex at 5:10 pm, took a leg massage, ate at 7, then went to my room while everyone else sat in the restaurant — because I’d developed vertigo and neck pain bad enough that I thought I wouldn’t be climbing the next morning. Manjeet Singh, roommate brought me a muscle relaxant at 9:45. Maddy gave me a light massage. I woke at 12:45 am, much better.
Give the bag to the pithu. There is no prize.
The poncho. It keeps rain off and traps every drop of sweat underneath. I arrived at Ghangaria — 3,050 m, evening, standing still — soaked through, and started getting cold. My dry clothes were in the porter’s bag. The porter was behind me.
So the first thing I did at Ghangaria wasn’t rest. It was buy a T-shirt from a local shop to change into while I waited.
I’d carried a laptop up that mountain and not a spare shirt. Whatever else goes to the pithu, keep one dry layer on your own back.
One small victory
Two friends passed me on horseback at 2:25. Two more at 2:35. Nods, a few words, and they rode on.
At the 8-kilometre mark I walked past all four. They couldn’t work out how. Five hundred metres later, the second pair again.
I reached Ghangaria half an hour behind riders who’d overtaken me hours earlier — because the old trail is shorter, and horses can’t use it.
Day 3: To Hemkund Sahib
Awake at 4:15, feeling fine. Almost everyone had chosen to ride. Three of us planned to walk. We meant to leave at 5:00. We left at 6:10.
At the third kilometre Sumeet felt heavy and took a horse. I caught Maddy and we went on together. The weather couldn’t decide — thick fog, then thirty minutes of hard sun, then fog again, each swing making the air heavier. We started inhaling camphor, which genuinely helped.
I’d planned not to sit at all. I sat at 4 km. I sat again shortly after. By the fifth I was sure I couldn’t take another step.
Somewhere on that climb we stopped at a cascade coming off the rock and drank the Lakshman Ganga straight from it. Cold, sweet, soothing. Two days beside an Alaknanda too thick with silt to touch — and here, a few kilometres below its source, the same water clean enough to cup in your hands.
Planned arrival 9:30. Actual arrival 10:15.
The flower I wasn’t supposed to see
We’d cancelled the Valley of Flowers. The timings don’t work — entry closes at 2 pm, everyone out by 5 — and there was no fitting it around Hemkund.
Then, twice on the way up, growing right beside the trail: the Himalayan blue poppy. Pale blue, translucent, prickly-stemmed, beaded with rain.
That is the flower people go to the Valley of Flowers to see. I saw it four times — twice up, twice down — on a trail I was walking for an entirely different reason. I’d seen it in 2023 too.
And the rain that made the climb miserable is exactly what the poppy wants. The weather that ruined the walking made the flowers.
At the top
Then you stand there and none of it matters.
We thanked Babaji and simply sat. We took the dip — cold in a way that resets something. Inside the Gurdwara we sat a long time and I didn’t feel like getting up at all.
The vibes, as we say, were really awesome. That’s not a good enough sentence and I don’t have a better one.
Look at us in that photograph and then look at the one from Dehradun airport at the top of this page. Same thirteen men, four days apart. Everybody made it.
That pale jade is glacial flour: rock ground fine by ice, held in the water. The same process that makes the Alaknanda grey and violent down in the valley makes this lake still and green. Same material, opposite result — the whole journey in one observation.
Shri Lokpal Lakshman Mandir
Hemkund is also called Lokpal, and the temple beside the Gurdwara carries that name. By tradition it’s the only known temple to Lakshman anywhere.
A small shrine. Tin roof, wet stone floor, two flags in the mist. Beside it, a Gurdwara that draws lakhs of pilgrims a season. Standing between them tells you what this place is: not two sites side by side, but one place two traditions have been walking to for a very long time.
Look closely at the offerings and they aren’t marigolds carried up from the plains. They’re Brahma Kamal — Uttarakhand’s state flower, which blooms only at these heights, and grows in pots along the walkway around the sarovar itself.
Then langar — dal khichdi with soya chunks and peas, my one meal of the day — and chai after.
About the fasting
I should explain. I was observing Chaliya, a forty-day Sindhi fast running 16 July to 24 August: one proper meal a day.
No breakfast on the trail. No snacks at the tea stops. Lemon juice instead of food. Yogurt and dry fruit while everyone else ate parathas and poha. My one meal on the hardest day was langar at 4,329 metres.
I’m not recommending it to anyone. I’m only telling you what I did. And I’ll say this much — after two days of walking on one meal a day, that plate of khichdi was the best food I’ve eaten in a long time.
The Descent Nobody Warns You About
Rain was forecast after 1 pm. We started down at 12:15. Amit joined us. Light showers, nothing worse, which was luck.
Maddy suggested we take the steps down instead of the main path, and it saved a lot of time. Second shortcut of the trip. The first came from a shopkeeper, the second from a friend — and neither is on any website. Ask people. That’s the whole method.
Three kilometres down I picked up pace under an overhead sun and reached Kuber Annex at 2:10 pm.
And then I was finished. Completely.
The plan was to walk on to Govindghat the same day. I had nothing left and the vertigo was returning. Four of the group walked to Pulna. The rest of us, me included, took horses. I didn’t enjoy sitting on that horse. My body simply wasn’t going to do anything else.
Left 3:15, Pulna 6:15. Cab to Gurdwara Sri Govindghat, darshan, prasad for family and friends, back to Mangal Tara. Done by 9:45 pm.
I Have Data on This: 2023 vs 2026
I wear a Garmin, so I can compare the two visits properly. Same climb, Ghangaria to Hemkund, three years apart.
| 10 Aug 2023 | 21 Aug 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| Start | 05:54 | 06:24 |
| Started from | Swiss tents, ~1.4 km below Ghangaria | Ghangaria |
| Distance recorded | 7.47 km | 5.38 km (watch died) |
| Elevation gain | 1,164 m | 947 m |
| Moving time | 2 h 59 m | 2 h 38 m |
| Climb rate | 389 m/hr | 358 m/hr |
The two totals aren’t comparable, for two reasons. In 2023 I was staying in Swiss tents about 1.4 km below Ghangaria, so my walk started further down — 7.47 km against the roughly 6 km from Ghangaria itself. And in 2026 my watch died before I reached the top, because I’d forgotten the charger and the friend carrying a spare cable had left it at Govindghat.
So compare rate of climb, not distance or total time. Door to door, 2023 took about 3 h 33 m. In 2026 I left at 6:10 and arrived at 10:15 — about 4 h 05 m.
Roughly 8% slower per vertical metre. Three years older, third hard day in a row. And before anyone asks: I was fasting in 2023 too — that trip also fell inside Chaliya. So the fast isn’t the variable. Something else is.
It was the acclimatisation
2023: Govindghat to Ghangaria on 8 August. Valley of Flowers on 9 August — about 7 km and 1,066 m of climbing. Hemkund on 10 August. Two nights at 3,050 m and a full active day at altitude before the big push.
2026: reached Ghangaria 5:10 pm on 20 August. Started for Hemkund 6:10 the next morning. One night. No acclimatisation day.
Here’s what I didn’t see until I compared the numbers: in 2023 the Valley of Flowers wasn’t just sightseeing. It was quietly doing the work of an acclimatisation day. Cutting it in 2026 didn’t only cost us the flowers — it cost us the day that had made the 2023 climb feel manageable.
That, more than anything, is why the fifth kilometre felt the way it did.
The Two-Night Rule
My single most useful piece of advice, paid for with my own legs.
The standard three-day itinerary is built for people on horseback, not for walkers.
Riding, one night at Ghangaria is fine. Walking, do this instead:
- Day 1 — Pulna to Ghangaria. Arrive, eat, sleep.
- Day 2 — Ghangaria to Hemkund and back to Ghangaria. Sleep there again.
- Day 3 — Ghangaria down to Govindghat, fresh.
Two nights at Govind Dham. Your body recovers and acclimatises, and you walk all three days properly instead of surviving the last one. Ghangaria has beds and langar. The extra day costs very little and changes everything.
Stretch to a third night and put the Valley of Flowers in between. You get the flowers and the altitude day both — exactly what made 2023 easier than 2026.
We did it the compressed way. That’s why I finished on a horse I didn’t want to be on.
What’s Changed Since 2023
The paperwork is heavier. Tourist Care Uttarakhand registration is now mandatory for both Hemkund Sahib and Badrinath, with daily caps. Vehicles need a Green Card for Char Dham routes. Valley of Flowers has its own permit, capped around 300 a day. Medical fitness certificate and photo ID for everyone, originals plus copies.
Landslide clearing has become impressively systematic. Held up at Gundala on the way out at 10:30 am. The teams open a single-vehicle gap, release traffic one side at a time, then go back to work. They don’t make you wait all day. Watching them was humbling.
The Valley of Flowers is harder to fit in than the guides admit. Entry shuts at 2 pm, everyone out by 5. Arrive at Ghangaria in the evening and you cannot realistically do it next morning and still climb Hemkund. Treat it as its own day or accept you’ll drop it. We dropped it — and the mountain handed us the blue poppy anyway.
Signal at Ghangaria is still patchy. Airtel and Jio work. Most other networks don’t. Tell your family before you go up.
The old trail is still there. Three years on: unmarked, uncrowded, and still not on any website I can find.
Practical Notes for 2026
Getting there. Fly Mumbai → Dehradun. From Jolly Grant it’s roughly 300 km and 10–12 hours to Govindghat. In Garhwal, kilometres tell you nothing and hours tell you everything — Chamoli to Govindghat is 55 km and still takes three hours on those hairpins.
Vehicle. No bus reaches Pulna. Budget for local cabs on the last 4 km.
Monsoon reality. August is the high-risk window. Landslides and closures on the Rishikesh–Joshimath–Govindghat road are normal. Build in slack and settle your cut order before you leave.
Routes worth asking about. The old trail from Pulna up, and the steps coming down from Hemkund. Neither is signposted. Ask a shopkeeper.
Filming inside the darbar isn’t allowed. We were asked to put the camera away, which is fair enough. Photograph the sarovar and the building as much as you like — but leave the phone in your pocket once you’re inside.
On the Hemkund climb, carry almost nothing. A small bottle is enough — there are shops the whole way selling water, cold drinks and snacks, and the Lakshman Ganga runs beside you clean enough to drink from the cascades. Day 2 taught me what a heavy bag costs. On Day 3 I carried a bottle and Maddy carried my change of clothes for the dip. That’s what friends are for.
Pack. Waterproof boots, not trail runners — there are stream crossings. Rain jacket, poncho, pack cover, clothes in dry bags. One dry T-shirt in your own daypack, not the porter’s. Trekking poles, because the descent hurts more than the climb. Warm layer, cap, gloves — Ghangaria and Hemkund are cold even in August. Salt or repellent for leeches lower down. Cash; ATMs are unreliable. Camphor, honestly.
And take the pithu. Please.
What I Actually Came For
Thirteen of us. A dead accelerator, a road block, a landslide, an unplanned night at Chamoli, a cancelled Valley of Flowers, a postponed Badrinath. One man on a horse he didn’t want to be on.
And a still, cold sarovar at 4,329 metres, a Gurdwara beside it, mountains standing all around — where I sat down and didn’t want to get up.
I can’t describe the peace of that place. Nobody can. You have to go and witness it.
I’ll go again.
Photographs and video by Jaspal Singh Bharaj, Kanwaldeep Kohli (Shahji) and the author.
More from these journeys
- Hemkund Sahib: Sacred Trekking Adventure (2023)
- Valley of Flowers: Blooms and Beauty
- Gorson Bugyal Trek near Auli
- A Week-Long Journey in Uttarakhand
- Dhari Devi Mandir
FAQs
How hard is the Hemkund Sahib trek? Pulna to Ghangaria is 9–10 km of steady uphill. Ghangaria to Hemkund is 6 km but very steep, topping out at 4,329 m. Reasonably fit people take 4–5 hours; on horseback it’s 1.5–2. The descent is harder on the knees than the climb.
What is the old trail to Ghangaria? The original riverbank route from Pulna, on stone steps and the old footbridges. Shorter than the post-2013 trail, closed to horses, and it passes local homes and a small Mata temple. Ask at the shops near Pulna.
Do I need to acclimatise first? More than you’d expect. In 2023 I had two nights at Ghangaria and a full day in the Valley of Flowers before climbing, and my rate of ascent was about 8% faster than in 2026, when I climbed the morning after arriving. Same trail, same person, three years older in 2026.
Can I see the blue poppy without the Valley of Flowers? Yes. I saw Himalayan blue poppies four times on the Ghangaria–Hemkund trail itself, in August, in the rain.
Can I do Hemkund and the Valley in one day? Realistically, no. The Valley closes entry at 2 pm with exit by 5, and Hemkund needs a full early start. Plan them as separate days from Ghangaria.
Are horses and palki available? Yes, for the whole climb both ways, arranged at Govindghat and Ghangaria. There’s nothing to prove by walking — take one if you need it. Note that horses can’t use the old trail.
Is there mobile network at Ghangaria? Patchy. Airtel and Jio work reasonably well; most others don’t. Tell your family before you head up from Govindghat.
What registration do I need in 2026? Tourist Care Uttarakhand registration (registrationandtouristcare.uk.gov.in) for Hemkund Sahib and Badrinath, a separate Valley of Flowers permit if you’re going, a vehicle Green Card for your operator, plus medical fitness certificate and photo ID for each person.
When should I go? The Gurdwara is open roughly late May to early October. July–August gives you flowers in bloom but also landslides and silt-grey rivers. September gives clearer skies and better confluence photographs.
How many days? Seven, airport to airport, is comfortable. If you’re walking rather than riding, build in two nights at Ghangaria instead of one.