Tungnath-Chopta-Chandrashila-Deoriatal in Mid April (Please Help)

Hi!!

The great informative answers provoked me to join Indiamike today!!!

I am planning to go to Tungnath-Chopta-Deoriatal in Mid April with my wife. I stay at Meerut and want to spend 4-5 days in untouched location. Can any body assist me to set up a schedule for this? A few basic questions are:

1. Whether Any bus available to Ukhimath from Meerut or Delhi? If not at least from Haridwar?
2. In April, can we expect a bit of snow in Chandrashila?
3. Will I get a Shared Jeep from Ukhimath to Chopta (to & fro)in this time of the year? If yes, then by what time I should leave Chopta to reach Ukhimath back?
4. As April is considered an off-season and the gate of the temple opens in mid May, is it safe for me and my wife to trek to Tungnath, Chandrashila and Deoriatal without any guide? Are there any danger from wild animals or "human animals"?
5. How much would be the approximate cost of the trip for 4 days.

Tentative Schedule:

Day 1: Meerut to Haridwar (Leaving Meerut in the evening, after office hours)
Day 2: Haridwar to Ukhimath, night stay at GMVN Ukhimath.
Day 3: Trek to Tungnath-Chandrashila from Chopta, back to Ukhimath.
Day 4: Trek to Deoriatal from Sari and back to Ukhiath
Day 5: Rest Day
Day 6: Ukhimath to Meerut.

Eagerly waiting for your informative replies.....

from meerut/delhi there are NO services direct for Ukhimath. you will get services from Rishikesh, and more services from Rudraprayag...
if you plan in first week of april then chances are that you might end up with find ing some snow around Chandrashila temple
from Ukhimath you will find shared jeeps till Chopta...
rather going to back to ukhimath, you can plan your stay at Chopta or Duggalbitta... (also possible in tents)
NO need of guides...
there are wild animals but they are afraid of humans, so chances are very very less of spotting them... rest, Humans are still humans in that area
as you are going in bus/shared jeeps, expenses will be very modest..
Happy traveling

Thanx for the valuable information Tilak!! But still some questions comes to my mind:
1. Whether we will get people (Dhabas) in Chopta/Tungnath in this time of the year?
2. Can we utilize our rest day in better way to see some unexplored places nearby?

1. yes, you will find Dhabhas open at Chopta... not sure abt tungnath... many visitors you can find here
2. you can give a visit to the winter Temple of Kedarnath ji at Ukhimath... rest its all peaceful area... can go for a stroll, enjoy nature rest you can ask some local boy to show you something of interest, he will guide you better

There is ok type, basic hotel in Duggalbita 9412029486. In case you decide to stay nearer to Chopta.
I was there in Feb. Plenty of snow then. And two-three dhabas
too were open.
One dbhaba was open right in Chopta.
As tilak said no need for guide, but just in case
9410115787. This guy is part time guide and runs a dhaba in Dugalbitta

right said Arshad, the phone number you mentioned is of a boy whose name is Dinesh... he is a wonderful lad....

Thanks Tilak and Arshad!!
Do you think that Kumbh Snan in Haridwar is going to affect my travel on 15th April(from Haridwar)? or, I should do it directly from Meerut to Ukhimathin same day!!! Is it possible in a rented car to do this strech in a single day? What about the Pauri route?

To get from Haridwar to Ukhimath it takes atleast 6-8 hours by bus. It is a lot of travel time and adding the time to get from Meerut to Haridwar makes the day very very long. But staying a day in Haridwar might feel like a waste to you. I think its doable, to reach Ukhimath from Meerut in a day but very tiring. You can get a shared taxi upto Rudraprayag at least, booked taxis of course can take you anywhere. And why arent you starting from Rishikesh??

Rahul rightly says it's very long from Meerut to Ukimath directly. I would suggest stay at Kaudiyla or Srinagar.
Kumbh should not be a problem. They are managing traffic very well there. A traffic cop every few metres.
I crossed the place recently while going to Chopta and was very happy with the arrangements.
There is GMVN guesthouse both in Kaudiyala as well as Srinagar.

Rented car can do Meerut to Ukimath in one day, but it will take at least 12 hours.
While going to Chopta I took the Pauri road. It was ok, but one strecth before Pauri was horrible. That is why I came back via the other route. There is road construction happening before Pauri. I would say avoid it till the road is ready.

There is a nightly bus from Delhi to Guptkashi which one can take till Kund. Problem is it probably goes via the Meerut Bypass and trying to intercept it on the way at night will be problematic. The next point it can be tracked at is Roorkee, but I really don't think it's worthwhile to be up past midnight for this bus. Best is to get to Rishikesh, from where all the upcountry traffic starts.

We drove Delhi-Tilwara and Tilwara-Delhi in one day each, so Meerut-Ukhimath should also be possible in a rented car. It'll be tiring though.

Pauri route is not recommended for the moment as arshad says, there's road-widening in progress and it's slow going between Amotha and Parsundakhal (we used this route coming back). Actually we bypassed Pauri because we came direct from Khankra to Buwakhal via Khirsu, which was shorter. If you want to go longer route via Pauri, you can bypass all the construction by going from Satpuli to Pauri via Adwani (very scenic route).

Finally I decided the plan for my trip with the help of your valuable inputs:

Day 1: Meerut to Rishikesh (after office hours)
Day 2: Rishikesh to Ukhimath (Stay at night)
Day 3: Ukhimath to chopta by hiring a car (To Chandrashila) and come back to Ukhimath.
Day 4: Ukhimath to Sari (Trek to Deoriatal)and come back to Ukhimath or Stay in Sari Lodge.
Day 5: Move to Joshimath in the morning and visit Auli by Cable car. (Night stay at Joshimath)
Day 6: Joshimath to Meerut (By early morning bus)

Please suggest if any improvements are required as I will be leaving in the next week.

[Note: One of my friend asked me to skip Chandrashila as the melting snow on the rocky route can be fatal for the inexperienced trekkers like me]

You are doing a lot of back-tracking which is avoidable, considering you also want to go to Joshimath/Auli.

If you don't want to see anything at Ukhimath, you can go straight to Sari on Day 2 for night-stay. Even if you want to stay at Ukhimath, you should cover Sari/Devriya first on Day 3, then you can have a night-stay at Chopta. You can decide at Chopta on Day 4 if you want to go to Tungnath only or also to Chandrashila. It is best to take a guide if there is still snow in the higher reaches (I think the path to Tungnath is all clear, haven't heard of more snow in last one month). Come back to Chopta for night stay.
Day 5 you can move directly to Joshimath from Chopta, which will save you time. I'm not sure if you intended to do this by car, otherwise the daily "bhukh hartal" bus will take you all the way to J'math (enquire about departure time at Chopta).

Once you finalise your plan, I can give you contacts for GHs at Sari and Chopta if needed.

Some more info in these threads:
Deorital guest house
Tungnath in Garhwal

I will be really thankful if u can give me the contact number of Sari and Chopta Guest House...

There are a few GHs at Sari, I have the contacts for only two with me.

1) Dev Bhumi Tourist Lodge. Saw it from outside, looked ok. The owner is Raghubir Singh Negi, tel (0)9411554291 and (0)9758187559. He also runs one of the dhabas close to Devriya Tal.
2) Rakesh Tourist Lodge. Owner Murli Singh Negi, tel (0)9458491488 and 01364-214093. I met him at the lake with a group of trekkers, haven't seen the GH.
3) Reflection Resort is at the lake itself, excellent location but if you want to stay there you'll have to arrange a porter for luggage. You could call the owner Kunwar Singh Negi and ask for accom options at Sari (he might mention Dev Bhumi TL because he semed to be friends with Raghubir Singh). His tel. is (0)9410530559.
What you should do is call all these people and get comparative rates and then decide.

At Chopta, there are about 10 lodges in all . All of them were closed when we went last month. By chance we got to see one of them because the owner's son had come for some maintenance work. I can't say about the others but this one looked the best to me and that's where I would stay if I went again. This is Nilkanth GH, the guy we met is Subodh Maithani. The family is from Makkumath (winter seat of Tungnath) His 82 year-old uncle is the chief pujari of Tungnath. Tel nos. are 01364-219430 and (0)9410343270.
If you speak to Subodh, say you were referred to him by "those two guys from Delhi who gave you a lift from Chopta to Makkumath" (he doesn't know our names, so just tell him this ). He said the rooms were 400-500 each, you can negotiate.

Heard about the Recent Bus Strike in Uttarakhand... i need quick updates if anybody has as i'l be leaving tomorrow... are shared taxis a better option? will it be available?