Clothing required for Badrinath, VoF, Hemkund etc

Hi friends,

I am planning to visit Badrinath, VoF, Hemkund etc in the first week of August. My Itinerary is as follows:
#31st July(10 pm)- leave from Delhi for Rishikesh
#1st Aug - Reach Rishikesh at 5 am. stay at Rishikesh whole day.
#2nd Aug - Start for Joshimath at 6 am. Reach Joshimath by 4 pm. Move around in Joshimath. Night halt at Joshimath.
#3rd Aug - start at 6 am for Badrinath. Reach badrinath by 10 am. Stay in Badrinath whole day. see the evening aarti.
# 4th Aug - go to Mana and come back and stay whole day in Badrinath itself.
# 5th Aug- Start for Govindghat in early morning around 7 am. Reach Govindghat and trek to Ghangaria. Night stay at Ghangharia.
#6th Aug - Trek to VoF and come back
# 7th Aug- Trek to Hemkund and come back
# 8th Aug - Start from Ghangharia to Govindghat; reach Govindghat; start from Govindghat for Rishikesh and reach Rishikesh by 8 pm on the same day. Night halt at Rishikesh.
#9th Aug - Spend whole day at Rishikesh and in the late evening take a bus back to Delhi.
10th Aug- Early morning, reach delhi.

I have the following questions about my trip:
1. Is the above itinerary ok?
2. Am I spending too much time in Badrinath or Ghangharia or any other place?
3. Is there some other place too that I can visit within the above time frame?
4. I have heard about Pipalkoti. Does this place have some significance?
5. I am planning to book a cab and I also talked to one of the cab-driver. He quoted me Rs. 5500 for 3 days(for Badrinath and back) and Rs 700 extra for every additional day of stay because all the places that I want to visit are en-route to Badrinath only. So is the amount that he is asking for, fair?
6. I am planning to visit there with my mom and my brother? My mom is 55. Will she be able to trek from Govindghat to Ghangahria
?
7. What clothings do I need to carry to these places? Will it be very cold there?
8. Are there reasonably priced hotels at Badrinath and Ghangharia? If yes, any rough idea about the tariff in 1st week of August? Is it easy to get accomodation in the hotels?

Thanks in advance for your response...

And also, do I need to make provisions for landslides? Is it safe to visit these places in the month of August?

I have the following questions about my trip:
Yes , except 8th August .
No ,it looks pretty balanced to me if you intend to visit all the places in & around Badrinath.
Auli near Joshimath.
Personally I don't know much about this ...other fellow IM'ers might be able to help you on this.
Looks OK .
You can hire pony for her if she's not able to trek.
Daytime temperature will be around 15 - 20*C & during night temperature can drop as low as 5*C.Also you need to carry rain gear.
Yes , plenty of hotels.... don't expect anything fancy in Ghangaria . Price range start around Rs.300 per day for double/triple bed with attach bathroom.

Yes it's safe to visit in August ...many people do it.
Yes rain causes landslides in these months. It'll be better if you can keep 1-2 extra days for any emergency. If everything goes smoothly as per plan then you can utilize those days to visit Dehradun .

Swapnil, thanks a lot for your reply...
Regarding my programme for 8th of Aug, do you that think its not possible to cover the distance from Ghangharia to Rishikesh in a single day? How much time does it take to trek from Ghangharia to Govindghat and then from Govindghat to Rishikesh?
I can also think of trekking down from Ghangharia to Govindghat on 7th of August itself. Your thoughts on this?

Hi Moderators...sorry for the spelling mistake that I have made in the title of the thread where I have misspelled Badrinath as Bdrinath. It will be really nice of you if you could rectify this mistake of mine. I think I dont have the rights to modify the title.

Thanks...

It takes approx. 3-4 hours to trek back Govindghat from Ghangaria (depending upon your fitness level)
Either stop somewhere between Govindghat & Rishikesh on 8th August or if you can trek back to Govindghat from Hemkund on 7th August itself(though this will be tiring) then you can proceed as per your plan on 8th August.

Badrinath to Rudraprayag takes anywhere between 5-6 hours depending on the road conditions. So, going by that logic if you start from Ghangaria early morning 6AM the you reach Govindghat at 10AM and from there another 10 hours to reach Rishikesh. I guess your Aug 8 plan if fine - just that you could not see other places en-route like all the 5 Prayags, Auli etc.
For pipalkoti - there is practically nothing to my knowledge and it is crowded as well. I do Badrinath every year and try not to stop there.
- Amit.

Thanks Swapnil and cute_lilhunk..
Few more questions:
1.) What kind of rain-gear is required? Will the ponchos that are available in Rishikesh for Rs. 10 do?
2.)And also, what kind of shoes? I think if we go to either Hemkund or VoF we will get completely drenched even though we would be using rain gear. So, should we carry more than 1 pair of shoes?
3.) Same for warm clothings too(as in 2 above). And also, do we need heavy woolens?
If we carry so much stuff, I think, it will be too much of baggage and lots of baggage will be a hindrance in travel.

Thanks guys...:-)

no response yet???

Yes they'll do ...keep some extra ponchos with you just in case.They are also available in Govindghat & Ghangaria (at little higher rate though)
You should enjoy rain .... but if you wish you may carry one more pair. I've seen many people walking barefoot all the way to Hemkund ....so you shouldn't worry much.


I suggest you go through Valley of Flowers & Hemkund Sahib thread carefully ....it'll clear your many doubts.