Char Dham Yatra Route Map 2026

Complete Route — Stop by Stop

Kedarnath Route Map — The Segment Everyone Asks About

The Kedarnath leg is the only part of the circuit with a mandatory trek, so its route deserves its own line. From Haridwar the road runs Rishikesh → Devprayag → Srinagar → Rudraprayag → Tilwara → Agastyamuni → Guptkashi → Sonprayag (235 km). Private vehicles stop at Sonprayag; a shuttle jeep covers the 5 km to Gaurikund; and the final 16 km to the temple is on foot via Jungle Chatti, Bheembali and Lincholi — or 8 minutes by helicopter from Phata/Sersi/Guptkashi. Coming from Gangotri on the full circuit, you join this road at Guptkashi via Ghansali instead of driving back through Rishikesh. The one navigation mistake pilgrims still make: following an old map to the pre-2013 Rambara trail. That route no longer exists — the rebuilt trail crosses to the true left bank of the Mandakini after Bheembali.

Kedarnath to Badrinath — 218 km for 41 aerial kilometres

On a map the two temples sit almost side by side, 41 km apart as the crow flies. But the Kedarnath and Badrinath valleys are separated by a wall of 5,000-metre ridges with no motorable pass, so the road drops all the way down the Mandakini valley, crosses the Chopta ridge at 2,700 m, and climbs the Alaknanda — 218 km from Gaurikund and 8–10 hours of driving, after the 16 km trek down from the temple. The detour happens to be one of the prettiest drives in Uttarakhand: the Chopta stretch runs through deodar forest and open meadows with Chaukhamba filling the windscreen on clear mornings.

A one-day transfer is possible on paper and rarely pleasant: leave the temple by 5 AM, reach Gaurikund by 10, then sit in a car for nine hours after a 16 km downhill trek, with the 10 PM night-driving ban as a hard deadline. The plan that works, and the one built into our packages, is to trek down in the morning, drive as far as Pipalkoti (about six hours from Gaurikund), sleep at a comfortable 1,260 m, and do the final 75 km to Badrinath early next morning — arriving in time for darshan before the day crowd. As a dedicated one-way transfer with that halt, the leg runs roughly ₹7,500–9,000 in a sedan, ₹10,000–12,500 in an Innova Crysta and ₹14,000–18,000 in a Tempo Traveller; inside a full-circuit booking it is already in the fare (see cab fares).

Distance Reference Table