I heard about Badrinath from my friend who have been to Auli in winter. We five people hired a Toyota qualis and left NOIDA(NCR) at 6AM. We reached Haridwar at 12 noon had a bath in river Ganga and spent 2 hours there and another hour in Rishikesh. On the way we briefly stopped at a place called Devaprayag where Baghirati & Alaknanda combine to form Ganga. We reached a Srinagar at 9PM and stayed in a hotel there. We got a nice room for 500 bucks.
Next morning we left Srinagar at 5AM and and reached Rudraprayag at 6AM. There is nothing much to see in Rudraprayag except that Mandakini river joins Alaknanda.The road from Rudraprayag to Kedarnath is alright and river Mandakini flows next to the road all along till Gaurikund. We reached Gaurikund at 10 AM. We had a bath in the hotwater Kund in Gaurikund. This kund is near Gauri temple. We then setout to reach Kedarnath. Kedarnath is 14 Kms from Gaurikund and one can reach there by walk or ponies or Doli. For pony they charge you Rs.500 for one way and for Doli its Rs.2000. Its wiser to walk some distance as you can get pony on the way. I walked for nearly 7 Kms till a place called Rambara and payed Rs.250 for a pony from Rambara to Kedarnath. Usually it will take 4 hrs for a horse to reach Kedarnath and 6-7 Hours by walk. We reached there by 4 PM and it was chilling cold. The scenary there is stunning with a beautiful Kedarnath temple sorrounded by snow capped peaks. It just took about half an hour for us to get Darshan. People there told us that Adi Guru Shankaracharya’s samadhi is just behind the temple. We left Kedarnath for Gaurikud on horses but couldn’t proceed beacuse of bad weather and has to stop at Rambara. We slept in one makeshift tent there. He charged us Rs.250 but it was very dirty.
We reached Gaurikund next morning at 7 AM had a bath in hot water kund and left Kedarnath at 10 AM. It’s nearly 160 Lms from Kedarnath to Badrinath via Gopeshwar but its very tiring and took almost 8 hours. We missed the last gate of 16:30 hrs at Joshimut and after repeated requests they let us go. The road from Joshimuth to Badrinath is very tricky and lot of landslides happen there. It took over an hour for us to travel just around 30 Kms. We stayed in a lodge at Badrinath.
Next day we had a bath at hot water kund in Badrinath. The water here is hotter than in Gaurikund. The temple opens at 3 AM and its wise to getup early and have darshan in the early morning(before 7 AM) otherwise one has to wait long hours in a queue. We had a darshan and left for a village called Mana. There are two caves in Mana one cave belongs to lord Ganesha and the other to Vedavyasa. People here say that Vedavyasa wrote Mahabharath in this cave.
We left Badrinath at 14:00 Hrs gate and stayed ovenight at Rudraprayag and reached Delhi next day evening.