Hello and welcome to my blog!
Welcome back to another episode of my favourite travel series on Hive. This will be a long read so grab your coffee or tea or whatever you like and come along with me on this virtual tour of India's one of the most revered Shiva Temple, the Kedarnath Temple. This is part of the Char Dham Pilgrimage circuit in the Garhwal region, located in Rudraprayag district in Uttarakhand (one of the northern provinces of India (Bharat)).
A journey through the majestic Himalayas
Located in the Rudraprayag District of Uttarakhand, at an elevation of more than 3500 meters about sea level, there is no direct motorable road that goes up to the Kedarnath temple and one must trek for about 20 km to reach the temple.
The temple remains closed during the winter due to heavy snowfall and only remains open between April and November. If you remember my Badrinath Temple's adventure. You will see the first part of the long journey that we took. After that we left Badrinath and our destination was Kedarnath.
We wanted to take a peaceful trek from the middle of the forest ditching the standard trek that starts from GauriKund which is very busy and chaotic. We had to stop and rest on an outskirt of a small town just before Ukhimath. Everyone was tired and needed to charge their life juices back.
We woke up the next morning and saw amazing views of the Himalayas. How could you feel tired in such a beautiful place? All the clouds, trees and mountains make up for an amazing shot.
We still had a few kilometres to travel to Chaumasi, from where we would start our adventure. We took our sweet time this morning and left in our cars. We were a group of eight in two different cars. It was the biggest group that I have travelled with on such adventures. I guess, no one wanted to miss this one-of-a-lifetime adventure.
This was a very untouched part of the Garhwal with a very small population and densely forested area.
But not everything goes according to plan!
At Chaumasi we got bad news, the guides that were supposed to take us through the protected forest didn't renew their permit for that season and we couldn't go in without proper permissions. We tried to talk with the forest officials and other locals but there was nothing we could do. We had to go to the standard trek from GauriKund.
Gaurikund it is! We had to take a little detour that would wasted a lot of time. But at least the views were amazing. We stopped at a few places to take pictures and store them in both our brains and our phones.
I don't usually like to show the faces of my friends in my posts but I couldn't resist this, I don't know what to call this. Inception of photos (like the movie Inception with dreams inside dreams)?
So, the guy on the far right is shot by a friend, who is shot by another friend and all of them are recorded by the phone placed on the ground with a stand. Which is being recorded by the two friends at the back and then all of this is captured by me. I wonder where the remaining two were? Maybe they were capturing all of this Bolloywood-level direction, who knows? 😂
We reached the Sonprayag parking area which is as far as we could go with our private vehicles, after that, you had to take the cabs to Gaurikund from where the trek to the temple starts.
By the time we reached Gaurikund, it was too late to start the trek so we rested and decided to start early morning as soon as we could.
It was a starry night but we were still at the base camp and not as high and didn't have a big enough sky to shoot at. You can see my failed attempt to take a star trail photo. It took some 20 minutes for the earth to rotate that much. I was very impatient and there was some light pollution too at this camp.
Trekking along the shores of the Mandakini River
Finally, it was time for our trek. We started our trek as soon as we could, somewhere around 4:30 or so. It was still dark but there were enough lights and people on this busy route.
After a couple of hours, we saw the golden sunrays hitting the top of the mountains.
We were walking along the Mandakani River, which originates from the glacier just above the Temple and it is one of the major tributaries of the river Ganges.
As expected, the volume of water was low as it was October and which is a dry season. We were walking upstream keeping the river on the right side at the start but there are a couple of bridges just after Rambada, a small village, which will help you cross the river.
We quickly got split into smaller groups. It was bound to happen, generally for longer treks it is better to walk at your own pace and everyone has their own. The snow-capped mountains in the background started to show up. On the base of that mountain was our destination.
The trek is beautiful and filled with so many other visitors. There are mule, pony and other services available for those who can't go on foot.
There are all types of peaks here, some with snow at the top, others with green vegetation and forest, while some are just completely barren and sandy.
The entire trek is packed with so many stalls and tents that provide all kinds of necessities from resting to eating and sleeping. I prefer something less crowded and untouched but this place got too famous after it became the national news in the 2013 flash floods and a big Bollywood movie was made after it too. I hate to see natural wonders like this getting polluted but it is what it is.
The river found the path of least resistance right through the middle of this valley and I love these types of views. River, mountains, clouds and trees, what more can ask from a single picture?
You will see devotes from all over the country, ranging from children to the elderly. This place is really an amalgamation of cultures from all over the country.
Kedarnath Temple
After a moderately challenging trek which takes hours to complete, you will experience the ever-changing dynamic climate of the Himalayas. And within layers of fog and clouds, you will see the first views of the magnificent Kedarnath Temple.
Just a few hundred meters from the temple, you will see a lot of camps on the slopes of this beautiful mountain.
We decided to take some rest here as the temple opens in the evening. This is high up in the Himalayas and it gets windy and cold here even in early October.
History and Legends of Kedarnath
Kedarnath Temple is dedicated to Lord Shiva, one of the principal deities of Hinduism who is one of the Trimūrti (trinity in Hinduism). Brahma (the creator), Vishnu (the preserver) and Shiva (the destroyer). It is part of Char Dhams and Panch Kedar (5 Kedar temples) in Uttarakhand and one of the 12 Jyotirlingas of Lord Shiva in India. I have been to the other four temples and this was my last one from the Panch Kedars.
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According to the Hindu Legend, Pandavas, five brothers from the ancient epic Mahabharata, after killing their brothers and enemy Kauravas wanted redemptions and went out to seek Lord Shiva for his blessings. They first went to the Varanasi but Shiva took off to the Garhwal region of the Himalayas. So, the brothers went to the Garhwal in search of him. Lord Shiva disguised himself by taking the form of a bull but still Bhima, one of the brothers, saw him. But while they approached, the bull went inside the earth and took multiple forms and the places where the parts of the bull were manifested, the Pandav brothers built a temple each. The hump was seen at this Kedarnath, belly portion at the Madhamasheswar, his face at the Rudranath while his hair at the Kalpeshwar and the arms appearing in Tungnath.
Temple Architecture and Motifs
The architectural style is similar to the other temples found in this region. It is made out of large stone slabs perfectly placed on top of each other with no use of mortar or adhesive substances.
The temple architecture is similar to Tungnath and Madhyamaheswar (shown above). The main deity resides in the cone-shaped structure, the sanctum sanctorum where a huge irregularly shaped Lingam is worshipped. The outer enclosed hall contains the statues and carvings from various Hindu deities including the status of five Pandava brothers, Nandi, Lord Krishna etc.
Just outside the temple door, a large statue of Nandi stands as a guard.
This temple is located in one of the most beautiful places, flanked by snow-capped mountains on the back from where the Mandakani river, starts her journey and flows past the temple. On both sides are mountains making a big ball of protection which even traps the clouds and does not let them escape.
Bhim Shila
This place experienced the worst of flash floods during 2013 floods which destroyed most of the things around the temple and killed many hundreds of people. But one magical incident saved the temple from getting destroyed. During the floods, a big chunk of stone came down and placed itself perfectly in front of the temple which protected the temple from the massive force of water. Eyewitnesses reported that the flow was diverted and this saved the temple from debris and water. Many people took refuge inside the temple during that emergency which were then saved by emergency services.
What are the chances a big rock came down with the debris, stopped just before hitting the temple rear end and saved the thousand-year-old temple and the refuges inside it from a massive flash flood? This is now called Bhim Shila, (Bhim = one of the mightiest Pandav brothers and Shila = rock). This is now a strong point of faith and many people worship it and sit here to mediate.
There are some smaller temples in this temple complex, the place is filled with so many visitors.
And as you can expect from any Shiva temple, there were Tridents, a lot of them!
We enjoyed the Aarti (evening prayers), the top of the mountains was still getting the last rays of the sun.
This is a lovely place to tickle your spiritual senses and experience the beauty of the Himalayas along with the bright and colourful culture of India. I am sure it will be one of a lifetime experience for people of all ages, religions, cultures and genders. There is something here for everyone. The nature lover in me wants to experience the magical sunrise over the peaks again and again!
The only thing that I did not like about this place was the excessive use of poor animals to carry people and materials to the top. I just like to plead with everyone to not go if they can't carry themselves up the mountain rather than giving some hard time to those poor animals.
There are helicopter services available too, but as you can expect they are expensive. I hate to see young and healthy people getting carried over by horses and mules. Just stay at home if you can't do it.
Anyway, I captured a few videos to show how busy the trek can get.
No wonder there are legends of people going straight to heaven from here, the sunrise here feels like the heavens are touching the earth and there is a magical dimension that you can cross if you somehow manage to climb on top of those mountains in the background.
I tried to capture a timelapse video of the sunrise, this is my favourite so far... hope you will love it too!
I will go there again preferably from the other trek through the forest. I want to experience it all over again. I have to go and retrieve the part of my soul that I left behind in those valleys.
Thank you for taking the time to explore this beautiful trek with me via this blog post. This post got longer than I expected, I will leave the rest for you to go and visit and experience it all. It is much more beautiful than I can make it look with my words or pictures. Hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did!
Stay tuned for more such adventures...
Namaste 🙏
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