Auli

Auli's meadows were army training slopes and shepherd pasture until GMVN opened a ski school in the 1980s and the 4-km Joshimath ropeway, one of the longest in Asia, arrived in 1994 to lift everyone else onto the ridge. Between January and March the slopes hold a metre of snow and the SAF Winter Games of 2011 were held here; a chair lift and ski lift serve a run of about 3 km, with snow machines fed by an artificial lake at 3,000 m. Summer is the other Auli: from May the snow gives way to grass and Himalayan flowers, and a 3-km walk up through oak and deodar reaches Gorson Bugyal at 3,056 m, a high pasture with a 180-degree line of peaks, Nanda Devi at 7,816 m, Kamet, Dunagiri, Hathi and Ghoda Parvat, Neelkanth and Trishul.

Chattrakund, a small pond further on, is the picnic spot. Serious walkers continue toward Kuari Pass at 3,876 m along the Curzon Trail, named for the viceroy who set out on it in 1905. Below, Joshimath is more than a transit town: the Narsingh temple houses Badrinath's deity in winter, Adi Shankaracharya founded his Jyotirmath here, and the Kalpavriksha mulberry tree beneath which he sat is claimed to be twelve centuries old.

A day in Auli is coffee at a slope-side hut, the crunch of snow or the smell of wet grass, and a sky that turns the peaks orange at both ends. It pairs with Badrinath and the Valley of Flowers into the finest week Garhwal offers.