Valley Of Flowers Trek Intro

Hi Guys!

I have recently completed the trek to Valley of Flower and I am going to write down about my experience. This information will specially be useful to people who are willing to do a solo trek and needs to prepare beforehand about things to be kept in mind and the budget required. I will try and put down everything that comes to mind and if you have a question please email me at ruha.imin(at)gmail.com and I will try to answer it to the best of my knowledge.
I went to the valley in mid of August 2016, the weather was really bad as there were landslides and heavy rain in Uttarakhand. My family was not convinced but I went anyway and I haven't regretted my decision even once. August is the best time to go because the flowers are in full bloom because of the rain.

I started my trip from Pune on 11th August and was back by 22nd August. It is a 10 day trip if you take a flight from your city to Delhi and I would highly recommend that because this is an exhausting trek.

My route was Pune- Delhi- Haridwar- Joshimath- Govind Ghat- Ghangria- Valley of Flowers- Hemkund Saheb- Govind Ghat- Badrinath- Mana Village- Joshimath- Auli- Haridwar- Mussorrie- Delhi- Pune

I would suggest replacing Haridwar with Rishikesh as it is a better place to stay and has more things to do.

Day 1- Pune-Delhi (flight) - Haridwar/Rishikesh (bus/train)
Day 2- Haridwar- Joshimath (state bus/shared taxi)
Day 3- Joshimath- Govind Ghat (20 km) - Ghangria
This is where the trekking starts.
Day 4- Ghangria- Valley of Flowers- Ghangria
Return the same day by 5 PM (valley rules)
Day 5- Ghangria- Hemkund Saheb- Ghangria
Day 6- Ghangria- Govind Ghat
Day 7- Govind Ghat- Badrinath- Mana Village- Joshimath
Day 8- Joshimath- Auli- Haridwar
Day 9- Haridwar- Mussorrie- Haridwar (Skip this place! After going to valley of flowers this place won't amuse you, rather go to rishikesh)
Day 10- Haridwar- Delhi(train/bus)- Pune(flight)

Please make sure you have good enough gap between your flight time and train arrival time as we had a two hours delay in the departure of the train so we had to cancel our tickets and hire a bus.

In other posts, I will talk about what to carry, budget and what to expect from the trek.