Uttaranchal Road Guide

[barista]

Hi,

Oct 27 we are traveling from Delhi to Sattal to Binsar and then to Rishikesh...Needs sone guidance on the route

1. Route direction for Binsar from Bhowali....do we need to go thru Almora to take the road for Binsar or is there separate route before Almora that takes directly to Binsar

2. The route from Binsar to Karnaprayag...please guide based on road condition and driving time.....should we take Binsar-Bageshwar-Baijnath-Gwaldam-Tharali-Karnaprayag or Binsar-Almora-Majkhali-Dwarahat-Gairsain-Karnaprayag

Cheers

Barista

[ramkya1]

Hai,

That's a nice route you are planning.

I did part of the route last year, roads must have improved where I had difficulty. Section of the road from Karnaprayag to Kasauni in my trip log would be useful to you. You may also find other info here useful, linky:

http://www.geocities.com/ramkya1/tri...TRANCHAL06.htm

Happy Driving,

--Ramky
========

[hvkumar]

Route particulars are as follows:

Kathagodam
3 kms after town, at Ranibagh, take a right turn towards Bhimtal/Sattal/Bhowali, straight goes to Nainital
Turn off point-Bhimtal, 17 kms
5 kms after Bhimtal is Mahagaon, where you turn left to go to Sattal (7 kms), or go straight to Bhowali
Return to this point from Sattal (since Sattal is a dead end road)
Bhowali is 4 kms from this point.

As far as I know, you have to go through Almora to go to Binsar.
Route is as follows:
Bhowali-Garampani, 18 kms
Khairna, 1 km
Almora, 33
Ayarpani Check Post, 20
This is where you turn right to go to Binsar KMVN (10 kms)

To go to Karnaprayag, from Ayarpani Vheck Post, route is as follows:
Club Mahindra, 10 kms
Bageshwar, 45
Baijnath, 23
Gwaldam, 23
Tharali, 22
Karnaprayag, 48 kms

I have no idea about the current status, but I have been on thes eroads post-rain (before repairs) and I found them quite OK - no bad stretches, although you can expect potholes from time to time. Roads are narrow and twisty, need to have total concentration on driving.

From Binsar, I have taken 6 hours to reach Karnaprayag, and I was quite fast, close to rally-type driving speeds in some stretches.

[ramkya1]

Sorry, that linky was not full, plese try this one.

What information you want is on date 23-10-2006 on the trip log.

http://www.geocities.com/ramkya1/tri...TRANCHAL06.htm

Tnx

Originally Posted by ramkya1

Hai,

That's a nice route you are planning.

I did part of the route last year, roads must have improved where I had difficulty. Section of the road from Karnaprayag to Kasauni in my trip log would be useful to you. You may also find other info here useful, linky:

http://www.geocities.com/ramkya1/tri...TRANCHAL06.htm

Happy Driving,

--Ramky
========

[hvkumar]

Returning from Binsar to Almora and taking the Garsain route doe snot make sense, but if you really want to do that, here is the route:

Binsar GMVN
Ayarpani CP, 10 kms
Almora, 20
Dwarahat, 30
Chaukhutiya, 20
Mehalchauri, 20
Garsain, 12
Adibadri, 28
Simli, 14
Nandprayag, 27
totalling 180 kms

A freind of mine (Rishi Kapoor) took that route from Nandprayag to Ranikhet (same route, almost same distance) and took 6 hours.

In comparison, the earlier route via Gwaldam is a little over 200 kms.

So, you decide which one is better. I have never been on the Garsain route, but I can say that the bageshwar/Gwaldam route is beautiful (fantastic views especially at Gwaldam), roads are exciting to drive on and you can also visit the Baijnath Temple en route.

[rkbharat]

route from Baijnath till Gwaldam could be very bad at times. And at few stretches its even difficult to pass two big vehicles at the same times.

I did this route in 2005, on my Indica, and at places, we were just driving over small streams. But good part is there is not much traffic on this route.

Gwaldam has two hotels, just at the entry of the market. One is GVMN hotel, pretty OK Ok, and there is one private, with very good view.

But for sure, this is one superb drive, with beautiful surrounding.

[barista]

Hi all

Thanks for the responses...am definetly interested to take the route Binsar-Bageshwar-Baijnath-Gwaldam-Karnaprayag.......was having doubt about the recent road conditions.....as we have to reach our rafting camp near Kaudiyala and my plan is to start around 7 am from Binsar and reach Kaudiyala by 3 pm

[barista]

Hi all

Thanks for the responses...am definetly interested to take the route Binsar-Bageshwar-Baijnath-Gwaldam-Karnaprayag.......was having doubt about the recent road conditions.....as we have to reach our rafting camp near Kaudiyala and my plan is to start around 7 am from Binsar and reach Kaudiyala by 3 pm

[Tiger]

Hi ramkya

We are planning to do a trip to Uttaranchal from Dec21st( starting from Bangalore), drive all the way & back by 3rd Jan.
Eventhough it is a short time we just want to enjoy the winter there.
Can u guide us to some of the best places there. We love driving & welcome your inputs.
We are just thinking of Joshimat & Kumaon and places around that.
Vehicle Bolero & we are four.

[hvkumar]

Auli, off Joshimath is one of the best skiing places in India, but I am unsure whether it would have sufficiently snowed there by that time.

The journey from Bangalore to Uttarakhand base camp (either Hardwar or Nainital) should take you a minimum of 3-4 days, depending on your speed and same on the return, unless you plan to drive non-stop, in relay, through the nights, etc. (Days 1-3)

This means you would have just around 7-8 days of driving in Uttarakhand. (of total 13 days)

The ideal circuit could be as follows:
Delhi-Nainital-Gwaldam-Karnaprayag-Joshimath-Auli
Auli-Karnaprayag-Deprayag-Tehri-Dhanaulti-Musoorie-Dehra Dun
Dehra Dun-Delhi

Assuming you drive out from Delhi on early morning, you could be in Nainital by afternoon - Naini itself can be quite a place to go around being a Lake District. That means 1-2 days gone there (Days 4-5)

Driving from Nainital to Auli is a tough day's drive (Day 6).

Auli (Day 7)

Drive from Auli to Dhanolti/Musoorie - Day 8

Musoorie region - Day 9

Musoorie to Rishikesh/Hardwar and from there to Delhi - Day 10

Day 11-13 will be the drive back.

You should hopefully see snow at Auli, Dhanolti. Be prepared for some road closures on Dhanolti-Musoorie stretch.

You have the option of driving through Corbett Park to reach Nainital - which mean syou arrive in Corbett from Delhi on Day 4, spend the night there, leave next day for Nainital, spend Day 5 and carry on from there.

En route from Nainital to Karnaprayag is Binsar and Gwaldam. Expect snow in Gwaldam too - no idea whether the road through Gwaldam is open through this month or snowed down.

Alternatively from Corbett, you can drive staright to Ranikhet without touching Nainital and go on to Karnaprayag en route Auli.

Accomodation is available at several places en route - please carry a directory of GMVN/KMVN hotels with you.

Expect heavy crowds in Musoorie and nainital for Christmas/ New Year - hotel tariffs are exornitant and you may not get choice accomodation without prior booking.

You ahve 2 options to reach Delhi, either way:

Bangalore-Hyderabad-Nagpur-Laknadon-Sagar-Jhansi-Gwalior-Agra-Delhi

or

Bangalore-Belgaum-Pune-Bombay-Surat-Baroda-Ahmedabad-Udaipur-Jaipur-Delhi

Both the routes have their own set of bad road problems at this point in time, but if you guys are very fast, you could reach Delhi by end of Day 3.

You can PM me for my log books on all these routes, and also these places in Uttarakhand.

[barista]

Wow.....this looks like to be an exciting drive....please prepare a travelogue once you have done the trip...Cheers

[Tiger]

Thanks HVKumar

Our tentative plan is like this

Dec 21st 4.0pm leave Blr
We shoud be reaching some where near Aligarh or Moradabad on 23rd evening. We want to reach to a place which is close to a Hill station & halt. From 24th we will start actual trip to uttaranchal. So we will have 8 days to see some of the places & back to bangalore the same way by around 2nd or 3rd Jan.

We have done long journeys like this many times.
2005 we did Bangalore - Hydbad - nagpur - Narsinghapur - Gwalior - Jhansi - Agra - Delhi - Manali - Leh - Kargil - Srinagar - Jammu - Amritsar - Delhi - Bangalore in 21days covering 8000kms.
Bangalore to agra we did in flat 2 days.

We will not be taking Bangalore - pune route as it is around 200kms more(assuming).

The Nagpur route is better as we will not be touching delhi & there are some bad strech after lakhandon - narsingapur. Other than this route was fine. I dont know how it is now.

This is "barista"s thread, I will open a seperate thread on this by next week.

[zenx]

Planning to do an Uttaranchal trip - 9 days starting 19th April from Meerut before we get to Delhi to catch the Rajdhani back home on the 28th. The route described above sounds awesome - but any tips on what to include/exclude in April would be great. 2 kids -6 and 3 and the 2 of us, so ideally want to have 2/3 "basecamps" and drive around. Is Auli nice if one's not looking at major skiing ? Is it even an option in April ?

Also, cannot drive from Blr for time/kids-on-the-trip reasons - is it possible to get self driven vehicles around there (say, from Delhi-Delhi for 10 days)? An Indica would do fine, a Scorpio/Qualis would be great. What prices etc, if so ?

[hvkumar]

No snow in Auli in April....or anywhere in Uttarakhand for that matter.

With kids around, you should plan to go to Rajaji National Park (near Roorkee), which could be the first port of call after Meerut. From there, you could proceed to Musoorie, but ideally I would stay at Dhanolti. From Musoorie/Dhanolti, I would proceed to Tehri Dam (boating is there nowadays, I think), and if in the mood for pilgrimkage, cover either Kedarnath or Badrinath. If you go to Badri, then ou have the choice of going to Auli (cable car from Joshimath or car all the way), or walk to the Valley of Flowers (not in full bloom, but great place nonetheless), which means a 14 km long walk/pony ride to Ghangariya and walking of 3-5 kms from there into the Valley. If ou are still not satiated, drive on to Nainital via Gwaldam to enjoy the Lake District and return to Delhi.

Best places to halt are Rajaji WLS, Musoorie, Auli and Nainital. In case you want to throw in one more WLS (or don't want to go to Rajaji), I would recommend Corbett WLS on the way back from Nainital to Delhi.

[zenx]

Thanks hv! That was quick. Part of the plan is to stop at DDun on the way back (relatives there) so might do that trip in reverse. The suggestions sound great. How about Ranikhet/Binsar ? Is Corbett a better bet than Rajaji ?

Also, does one need to make advance reservations (Corbett, for sure) - or can one decide destinations/acco on the move ?