Why you should travel to Uttarakhand this summer at your own risk?

The sun is blazing in the sky and scorching everything under its direct view. Given the prevailing humid weather conditions, it is obvious that the people would look for respite in the hills and cool mountains.
Now, to escape the scalding omnipresent heat wave, several tourists are hitting the road leading to Uttarakhand. As a result, the highways connecting different parts of North India to Uttarakhand state are jammed with vehicular traffic. Add to this, due to the ongoing summer vacation season, several enthusiastic pilgrims have left their homes with packaged bags for the Char Dham yatra. All these factors have literally choked the roads in the Garhwal region with double the expected number of vehicles entering Uttarakhand this summer. Reportedly, because of this reason, it is taking more than double the time to take Badrinath and Kedarnath.

With the day time temperatures reaching the 45 to 49 degrees mark in India, tons of tourists are looking up to the mountains of Uttarakhand to cool off. According to the news reports, more than 80000 vehicles pass through Haridwar every day, as told by Janmejay Khanduri, SSP Haridwar to a news daily. The same situation prevails in popular tourist destinations like Rishikesh, Dehradun, Mussoorie, Rudraprayag, Yamunotri, Gangotri and Nainital.
It has been reported that the debris left after making the all-weather roads is the reason for the traffic issues beyond Rishikesh. The widening of the roads was temporarily stalled due to the tourist season, and the debris lying on Chamoli-Joshimath road turned into the main source of traffic blockage.
However, Swati S Bhadoria, Chamoli District Magistrate, told the press that the debris has been removed from a lot of places and the remaining debris is being cleared off on an urgent basis. Another main problem leading to the traffic jams is the shortage of parking lots and increase in the number of small vehicles visiting Uttarakhand.

The road from Janki Chatti to Syana Chatti en route Yamunotri and the 13 km road from Ganganani to Sukki Top en route Gangotri are the most congested stretches as of now. In fact, social media users have reported that they had a hard time reaching Kedarnath, and finding a parking lot was another impossible challenge. On top of that, even small hotels and guest houses are charging exorbitant rates from tourists and there is a very long queue even to get a cab to reach Gauri Kund to begin the trek to Kedarnath temple. All these factors have forced many tourists to return.

On Monday, the Mussoorie-Haridwar road witnessed a long traffic jam. Many people remained stuck in traffic for 4-5 hours.

So, the message is clear now, if you wish to go on a holiday this season, make sure you avoid all roads to Uttarakhand, or for that matter, Himachal Pradesh too. And instead, think of travelling to Kerala, may be.