Most Himalayan treks are planned around the monsoon, which means avoiding it. The Valley of Flowers is the exception. This high glacial valley in the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand, in northern India, is at its best in late July and August, when the rain that empties every other trail brings up a carpet of alpine flowers between about 3,300 and 3,650 m. Combined with the pilgrim path to the Sikh shrine of Hemkund Sahib, which climbs from the same base village to a lake at roughly 4,300 m, it makes a five- or six-day journey that mixes botany, monsoon cloud and one of the great living pilgrimages of the Himalaya.
A valley found by accident
The valley was known to local shepherds and to the villages of the Bhyundar Ganga long before it was written about, but its reputation dates from 1931, when three British climbers, returning from the first ascent of Kamet, lost their way in bad weather and came down into a valley full of flowers. The mountaineer among them, Frank Smythe, returned in 1937 to collect plants and published a book that gave the place its English name. A botanist from a British garden, Joan Margaret Legge, died here in 1939 while collecting on a steep slope, and her small memorial still stands in the upper valley. The area became a national park in 1982 and, together with the neighbouring Nanda Devi National Park, was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2005. Grazing has been banned since the park was created, and the meadows have changed as a result; some botanists argue the flower cover has become less diverse without the sheep, which is a reminder that these landscapes were never entirely wild.
Getting to Ghangaria
The base for both walks is Ghangaria, a village at about 3,050 m that exists only in the trekking season, from roughly early June to early October. It is reached on foot from Govindghat, on the road between Joshimath and the Badrinath temple, itself a full day’s drive from Rishikesh or Haridwar through the deep valleys of the Alaknanda. A short road now runs from Govindghat to the village of Pulna, and from there the trail climbs about 9 km and 1,000 m beside the Bhyundar Ganga, on a wide stone path shared with mules, porters and thousands of pilgrims. It is not a wilderness walk. Tea stalls line the route, the river roars beside it, and in the peak weeks of July the path can be crowded from dawn. Ghangaria itself is a strip of guesthouses, a pilgrim rest house and a gurdwara, tucked into a narrow valley bottom where the sun arrives late and leaves early. Most people spend two or three nights here.
The walk into the Valley of Flowers
The park entrance is a short climb above Ghangaria, where an entry fee is paid and names are recorded. Entry is for the day only: there is no camping in the valley, and visitors must be out by late afternoon. From the gate the trail crosses the Pushpawati River on a bridge and climbs through birch and rhododendron for about 3 km before the valley opens out. What follows is a broad, gently rising floor some 6 km long, walled by cliffs and hanging glaciers, with the river braided down the middle. The path continues for another 3 or 4 km towards the Legge memorial and the moraine below the peaks at the head of the valley. Which flowers you see depends entirely on the date. Early July brings primulas, anemones and geraniums; late July and early August are the height of the season, with balsam, potentilla, the Himalayan blue poppy and dense stands of pink and purple in the wetter ground; by late August the show is fading and the seed heads take over. The brahma kamal, a large pale flower sacred to the region, grows on the higher slopes and around Hemkund rather than in the valley floor. Cloud rolls in most days by late morning, so an early start gives the best light and the drier hours. Allow six to eight hours for the round trip from Ghangaria if you go to the far end.
Hemkund Sahib: a pilgrimage at 4,300 m
The second walk from Ghangaria is very different in character. Hemkund Sahib is a gurdwara beside a small glacial lake at about 4,300 m, held by Sikh tradition to be the place where the tenth Guru meditated in a previous life, and it draws tens of thousands of pilgrims every summer. The path climbs 6 km and roughly 1,200 m from the village, first on a well-built stone trail and then on a steep staircase for the final section. Pilgrims of every age make the ascent, many of them barefoot, some carried, most walking slowly and calling out to each other, and the mood is unlike any other trail we know. At the top the lake sits in a bowl of scree and snow beneath seven peaks, with the star-shaped gurdwara on its shore; a small Hindu temple stands nearby. The shrine serves a free meal to everyone who arrives, and the tea in the cold wind at the top is one of the better cups you will drink in the Himalaya. The descent is hard on the knees, and the whole day takes seven to nine hours.
Weather, altitude and practical points
This is a monsoon trek, and it rains. Expect wet afternoons, mud, leeches in the lower forest and cloud that hides the peaks for days at a time; between the showers the light on the flowers is extraordinary. Good waterproofs, a pack cover and quick-drying clothes matter more than warm layers, although nights at Ghangaria are cool and the top of Hemkund can be near freezing. Altitude is the quieter risk. Ghangaria is only 3,050 m, but Hemkund at 4,300 m is high enough to cause headaches and nausea in people who have driven up from the plains two days earlier. Do the Valley of Flowers first, which is lower, and go to Hemkund on the third day. Road access is the other variable. The valleys of Garhwal are prone to landslides in the monsoon, and the region suffered catastrophic floods in 2013 that destroyed part of the trail and much of Govindghat; roads are regularly closed for hours or days, so build slack into the schedule. Permits are simple, a park fee at the gate and registration, but the park is closed outside the season and daily visitor numbers can be limited.
Why go
The Valley of Flowers is not a hard trek and it is not a remote one. What it offers is something no other Himalayan valley offers in quite the same way: a meadow at the height of its bloom, in a season when the rest of the range is closed, reached by a path shared with pilgrims on their way to a lake in the sky. We walked out to Govindghat in a downpour, soaked and content, and would go back for the last week of July without hesitation.