A biking trip exploring the mountains of Uttarakhand

The garwhal trip 2017
The trip started with a big question mark? How do we go?where do we go? Who all come along? Damn the questions and the dilemma. But then again everything eventually works out. We left on the 26th with our backpacks all tied up and packed and our bikes all geared up. We were all so excited and happy. A start to an adventurous ride to explore the uttarakhand, garwhal Himalayan ranges. Three people two bikes.
Day 1: 11 am we left  from nainital with the aim of reaching karnaprayag that is about 187 kms.
It was sunny mostly till ranikhet and then the sky started pouring down its blessings over us. We stopped at this abandoned government school which was this surreal place filled with  pine trees. After the shower of the sky stopped we started off  again. A few chai breaks at these cute lil roadside stalls with a view to die for.
It was about 9pm we reached adibadrinath. The night of the mountains can get scary and risky so we decided to halt at adbadrinath. And the lodging decision was a disaster. What a barren place with no electricity. But as it eventually works out we got a place to stay. And this is what we, see the sky full of stars and all I could think of was Coldplay. It was pure bliss to see the stars. Our room was not in a hotel  yes it was this very old house , spooky though it was situated among st a beautiful landscape a river stream flowing beside, trees all around, the sound of owls and crickets, a cute lil window and the candle to give us light.  But the candle burnt away and we slept with the lullaby of the sound of the stream and the crickets.

Day 2: 6 am we all woke up and checked out the stream , packed up our bags and left. The wind blowing on our faces. We had to reach karnaprayag where one of our fellow traveler was waiting for us. From adbadrinath to karnaprayag its a one hour ride. Smooth roads we were lucky. So our fellow traveler was there at karnaprayag greeting us with a huge smile and a warm hug.  Aah hunger calls..we had some amazing paranthas in karnaprayag with some ginger chai. And we had to leave anyway so bikes all pumped up we leave to reach chopta  which is about 75kms. the ride was scenic, the river, the majestic mountains. As much as I would love to describe the view in detail I cant. Words fall short to describe such beauty.
So the weather kinda screwed it up for us again. Rains and rains…but we somehow managed to reach chopta. Chopta is a forest area, meadow basically about 8790 ft.  a base for trekking is to tungnath  the third temple of panch kedar. From tungnath is chandrashila. So this trek to tungnath is a 2 to 3 hour trek. We decided to stay in our rooms for the day and trek the next morning.  We saw the sunset with the Himalayas in the background and the foreground was too beautiful to be true. The photographers in us got super pumped up to capture all the star constellations at night. And so we did capture them. Off to bed now with many jokes and fun filled talks.

Day 3: being a nocturnal being I didn’t sleep much at night so it was my responsibility to wake up my co fellow travelers for the morning trek to chopta.
3 am wake up call. Somehow my lazy co travelers woke up and we start our trek at 3:30 am it was still so dark and the sky was still covered with the stars. We had our torch lights and started trekking. When the light started filling up the sky we could get the view of the Himalayas , the kedarnath and chandrashila peaks were shining bright white. We saw the sunrise with the Himalayas right infront of us and the tungnath temple which is ancient. Due to the rains there was snow up at tungnath. But the sight was bliss. We sipped on some chai.
The same day around 11 am we planned to go to auli about 150 kms from chopta. The ride was smooth , though pahadi roads are crazy. We reached joshimath about 110 kms from auli. And it started pouring again. But we just wanted to be out in the open so anyway we left our backpacks in our hotel room and left to auli. As there wasn’t snow so there was not much to see. Though the Himalayas followed us everywhere and just the sight was ethereal.  It was so cold we almost froze while riding but that did not stop us. The night was gay. We were so tired from the chopta trip so it was an orchestra  of snoring In our room.