This place literally ROCKS! Trust me. I was here in auli from 29th Dec till 30th December 2006.
Stay:
There are only two places to stay here. One is GMVN(Garwal Mandal Vikas Nigam Limited) and the other is Cliff top from RCI resorts. RCI is expensive and not good for someone who wants to enjoy adventure. One will find more of foreigners here and you will find all damn facility you require in this hotel.
We stayed in a Hut in GMVN costing us around 900 per day. There are family rooms, dormitories and lot more options but Hut was THE BEST. I will update this review with the snaps and videos I took once its uploaded. Very cozy and clean. They have a heater inside the room and TV is also there with limited channels(Few star channels like star movies and star plus and a couple of Zee channels).
These huts were rt in front of the snow capped Shivalik Range. And to the right side of our hut you can see Nandadevi peak. Very quiet place. The food served there was pretty decent. There was a lot of family crowd too.
Treking:
We did a good 2.5kms of treking one way all by ourselves in the evening.
Skiing:
This is the slope where 2008 Asian games would be held. They have some good ski instructors. Their equipments are good. They charged us only Rs. 475/- for the equipment and the instrutors for a day. The ski slopes are open from morning till 2pm only. They have certification courses also which go for around 7 days. As snow just started during the time we went, we were able to ski only for half the hill. As learners, this itself seems to be like a very long distance. They have ski lifts also. As they were not working, we had to do all the treking which drained all our energy quickly.
Route:
We stayed in Dehradun and left for Auli in the morning. The route to this place is getting a little tougher now as they are blasting the rocks to widen the roads etc for Asian games. The roads will be closed from 8pm till 5am. So one will have to take a stay in some place like Rudraprayag or Chamoli or Kanprayag whereever one is comfortable.
Indo Tibetian Border Police and Highway patrol and at some places the army goes for rounds, so its pretty clean and if any road blocks are there, you can expect one of these guys there to help you in a short while.