"KEDARNATH" Kedarnath by jain012

Kedarnath is one among the 12 Jyotirling of lord Shiva situated in uttaranchal on the BAnk of Mandakni river .The present temple, built in 8th century A.D. by Adi Guru Shankaracharya lies adjacent to the site of an ancient temple built by Pandavas. The walls of the exquisitely architecture temple are embellished with figures of deities and scenes from mythology. The temple has a conical lingam - the main idol, a statue of Nandi - the celestial bull, a ‘garbha grah’ for assemblies of pilgrims and visitors. The temple is believed to be more than 1000 years old.
Kedarnath is 221 km away from Rishikesh and nearly 450 km away from Delhi. You can reach here from Delhi via Haridwar, Rishikesh, Devprayag, Ruderprayag, Augaust muni, Gupt Kashi, Guari Kund. Upto Gauri Kund you can reach by road and 14 km you will havr to cover by foot. The nearest railway Station is Rishikesh and nearest Airport is Jolly Grantat Dehradun which is 239 KM away. The best season is Between May to October. As because of heavy snow in winter the door of the temple remain closed. They are opened in the month of May (Akshya Tritya of the month of Vaishakh according to Hindu mythology) and closed on the Diwali in the month of Nov.

Me near the Badrinath Temple

As usual my partner of this tour was also my best friend Parv. We took a bus from delhi to Gupt Kashi at 8.pm. We reached at Gupt Kashi around 9 am in the morning. Gauri kund (base point of Kedarnath) is 35 km away from Gupt Kashi which we covered by local jeep. After booking a room in a hotel we had a bath in holy Gauri Kund. Water was natural hot coming from earth. Next day we started our yatra in the morning at 5.am from Gauri Kund, after 2.5 hours of trek we took our 1st stop at Ram-Bara which was 7 km away and from Gauri Kund and midpoint. We had some tea, snacks there and go ahead. After another 3.5 hrs trek we reached at the Main Temple. We took bath in the water of mighty Mandakni river water was bone chilled, buy some Dhoop Samgri for prayer and had to wait for darshan as lots of pilgrims were waiting for there turn at the entrance. The temple is almost 1000 yrs old and there was a shivling of Lord Shiva and beautifully carved idols of Pandavas. it was around 3 pm then. we decided to go back to Gauri Kund But I think we had to spend a night there as the environment was very good. One more thing we did not visit the Samadhi of Shankracharya just behind the Temple as we had not knowledge about that. When we were on the way it started raining but parv a tough guy did not let me stop and we were at Gauri Kund around 6. Pm. we booked our bus ticket for Badrinth for the next morning and after dinner slept in our hotel.

Parv at the Badrinath Temple

The bus started at 6 am in the morninig and via Ruderprayag, Pipalkoti we reached at Joshi Math at around 1 pm. the 40 km route from Joshi Math to Badrinath is single road, threfore there are timings when the traffic is opened from each side. So after waiting for one hour we headed towards Badrinath in the midway we reached Pandukeshwar or Gobindghat which is the base staion to go Valley of flowers which is on the 17 km trek from here. at round 4.pm we reached Badrinath, there I felt a different type of feelings that god is still living here. after booking a hotel we reached at the Main temple, a spring of hot water was also there as was in the Gauri Kund, took bath there. It was amazing to see that water of the spring was sohot that you can not put your hand in it and just 2 meter below it the water of Alaknanda was very cold. We had Darshan of the main Idol of lord Vishnu in the temple. Temple was beautifully built of the large stones.
Next morning we decided to see Mana Village the last village of indian side on Tibbet border which was 3 km away from here. Here we visited Vyas Cave, Bhim bridge which is built on the origin point of holy Saraswati River. Had some snaps there and came back to Badrinath.
Next morning we took bus to haridwar, in the midway, road was blocked due to some avalaunche, and had to wait for nearly 3 hrs. We reached at 10 pm at haridwar after having dinner we took bus to Delhi and at 4.am we were in Delhi,.
This was really a very good tour of my life