My 2-Day Trip in the Himalayas
In November, I spontaneously set off on a journey into the higher Himalayas of Northern India, with their astonishing natural beauty, spiritual power places and alchemising energies. At short notice, I booked a car and a driver experienced with mountain hairpin bends (!) and off we went. With the blessing of Ganga Ma, we left Rishikesh in the state of Uttarakhand early in the morning.
The popular Himalayan pilgrimage season, the Char Dham Yatra, was already drawing to a close, so the roads were quiet. Needless to say, the Himalayas are always worth a visit. Even outside the pilgrimage season, when the legendary Char Dham temples – Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath – are closed.
We headed towards the Chaukhamba Massif and the main summit of Kedarnath (6,940 m, in Rudraprayag district). Up there, at 3,583 metres, stands the Kedarnath Temple, which according to legend is more than 3,000 years old and dedicated to the god Shiva. Further down are the thermal springs of Gaurikund, at around 2,000 m, a place associated with the goddess Parvati, Shiva’s wife.
Along the way, we passed the emerald-green Mandakini River, a tributary of the Ganges. And a very cuddly puppy:
Augustmuni, 16 km from Rudraprayag, is named after the sage and yogi Agastya. He is one of the seven Rishis, the great sages of India. This is the idyllic and peaceful ashram dedicated to the memory of Rishi Agastya. I found the atmosphere wonderful.
Kalimath is a temple complex dedicated to the goddess Kali and is regarded as a Shakti Peeth, an important shrine and pilgrimage site. It lies at an altitude of around 1,800 m on the Saraswati River and is surrounded by the peaks of the Kedarnath mountain range. No image of a deity is worshipped inside the temple. Instead, the Sri Yantra is the focus of devotion and reverence.
A large bridge with railings covered in bells leads to the temple. At sunset, with hardly anyone around, I crossed it alone. Holding my offerings in my left hand – a tray with flowers, sweets and incense – I ran my right hand across as many bells as possible. The ringing obviously caught the priests’ attention and by the time I reached the entrance, all of them – five or six – were standing there to see who was coming. They smiled and welcomed me warmly. Jai Ma!
The air outside was beginning to turn chilly, but inside the different temple buildings the oil lamps created a sense of welcoming warmth, casting a soft glow over the garbhagriha, the sacred inner sanctums of the temples.
The scale of the mountains was almost impossible to grasp. There was something about the vastness, the silence and the sense of timelessness that simply refused to fit into words.
I am grateful that I had a decent camera with me. Here is part of the Chaukhamba range. We are talking about peaks more than 7,000 metres high!
Or do you prefer a blue sky as the backdrop for snow-covered mountain peaks? No problem, I have that too:
I soaked my feet in the very hot natural spring at Gaurikund, on the banks of the Mandakini, which serves as the base camp and starting point for the trek up to the Kedarnath Temple. The temple itself, however, had already closed for the winter. According to tradition, this is the place where the goddess Parvati was bathing while her son Ganesha guarded the door and refused to let his father Shiva enter, which had all sorts of consequences...
Triyugi Narayan Mandir near Kedarnath is a beautiful temple dedicated to Vishnu. According to tradition, this is where Shiva and Parvati were married. A sacred fire burns in front of the temple which is said to have remained alight ever since their wedding.
Curious what it is like to live high up in the Himalayas? It is glorious. Yet I know daily life there is rather challenging too. And far less romantic than the view suggests.
Surprise: banana palms and orange trees at more than 1,400 metres!
The landscape is magnificent, but travelling through it is not always easy. Apart from the narrow hairpin roads running close to steep drops, many landslides caused by the heavy monsoon rains block the roads.
Look at the first photo. That is a huge rock in the left-hand lane, not a car.
My journey lasted less than three days, but it felt much longer. I had the strange sense of having stepped outside ordinary time. Spiritually, the trip nourished me in a way that is difficult to describe.
And once again, I experienced the Himalayas as a kind of superspace, as if the ether itself was more ethereal here.
All photos: own archive, 2021 Original text from 14 December 2021 for AtelierAnanda.com Revised: 28 September 2026
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