The  day begins with a drive to Uttarkashi – which is small but busy town in the  Garhwal hills on the banks of the Bhagirathi River. This place is famous for  its temples, including the Vishwanath temple just to the north of the town as  well as the famed Nehru Institute of Mountaineering which is placed right above  the town. The drive is for 6-7 hours along which you will also pass the famed  Tehri dam which holds the Bhagirathi River to form a reservoir of almost 22 Km.  This dam is quite essential for the production of electricity in India. In  addition, you also get to see the Bhagirathi Mountains from a distance,  increasing the anticipation of seeing them up, close and personal.
Making  a way out of the town, we stop on the outskirts at a Monal Guest house where we  will check for the night. If we arrive early enough, you can take the rest of  the day to explore around Uttarkashi.

The drive to Gangotri will  take us 4 hours, which we begin immediately after breakfast. Once here, we  check in into a hotel for another night. Do make sure to visit the Ganga Temple  here – it one of the prime pilgrim locations for the Hindus and the temple  comes with its stories to share. Just beyond this temple there us a series of  concrete steps leading up to the main trail which we will be taking up to reach  Bhojbasa the following day.

The day begins with an  uphill walk with fairly defined Kilometer marks through dense deodar forests  and then opens into a wide unfrosted valley, through which the walk is pretty  much gradual till we reach an isolated pine forests at Chirbasa before finally  making it to Bhojbasa. After the first 4 Km there are some dhabas for a bite to  eat, where a tributary flows into the valley. Bhojbasa has a small temple there  and this used be full of Birch tree but unfortunately for us it is not there  anymore. Here we camp for the night after completing almost 15 Km in a period  of 5-6 hours.

Continuing along the  grassy hillsides, the trail then curves, to unfold a breathtaking view of  meadows studded with wild flowers and crowned by the Bhagirathi group of peaks.  We set the camp for you at a sandy beach at Gaumukh, where the Holy Ganga  gushes out of the snout of the Gangotri glacier. The Shivling at 6450 m sits  looking like an old learned man, while the Bhagirathi I, II and III tower  above. The trail leaves its way through the terminal moraine before cutting  across the Gangotri glacier and climbing steeply up to the grassy slopes to the  vast ablation valley of Tapovan- here the Bhagirathi peaks are almost within  touching distance. It is a pleasantly surprising and green meadow with bubbling  streams and wild flowers and camp sites below the Shivling. Trek time : 4-5  hours covering a distance of 9 km.

This is the second day at  Tapovan and is set aside especially for you to just relax and take in as much  as you can of the white panoramic giants above you. If you feel adventurous  enough then you can walk up to ridge to give a look at Meru glacier or instead  take a full day walk to the Kirti Bamak glacier reaching till the base of peaks  “Kedarnath Dome at 6850 m”, Kirti Bamak at 6500 m’ and catch a classic view of  Shivling from the east.

We find our route back to  Cheerbasa to spend a relaxed night here after completing 13 Km of distance in  4-5 hours. You will notice here that to the south the peak of Bhrigu Parbat  (6041m) looms high above the valley as well.

We walk back to Gangotri and board our vehicles  to drive to Uttarakashi. Overnight stay at an Uttrakashi Hotel- pretty mundane  after the natural habitation you have just left behind.

The  expedition comes to an end once we drive back to Rishikesh.