Joshimath to Auli Distance: 11 to 16 km, and the One Fixed Fare on Record

by Nav & Vandana Sharma · Published 25 September 2026 · Figures last verified 8 September 2026

The first time we drove up to Auli from Jyotirmath, it took an hour. That was October 2024, in our Baleno, from our hotel in town to a resort at Lower Auli. In June 2025 we came by bus from Delhi and did the climb the way most visitors do, in a shared jeep. The last time, in January 2026, we had dinner and tea in Jyotirmath and waited five hours for the road to open, then drove up in the dark in our Thar and checked in at 1:20 in the morning.

That is this road. It runs 11 to 16 km above Jyotirmath (still Joshimath on every map and booking app), depending on which of the roads up you take, and it takes 45 minutes to an hour on a normal day. In winter it can shut without warning. Every route to Auli ends on it, whichever city you start from.

Three trips, three ways up

October 2024 was the easy one. We started that trip from Aligarh, where we'd been with family, at seven in the morning on 17 October and reached Joshimath at ten that night, fifteen hours on the road. We stayed two nights at the Kailasha Inn on Badrinath Road, Rs 2,399 a night, with a day of sightseeing around town in between. On the 19th we set off at half past nine and were at our resort at Lower Auli by half past ten. That's how this climb goes for most of the year.

June 2025 was the trip we did like most visitors. We came up from Delhi to Jyotirmath by bus, then took a shared jeep up the last climb and stayed at GMVN at the top. It's the only time we've slept at the top of Auli: both our other stays were below it, at Lower Auli and at Sunil.

January 2026 was the trip that taught us about this road. We left Greater Noida at half past one in the morning on 24 January and reached Jyotirmath at 17:45.

Our trip sheet for that evening just says "road khulne ka wait": we had dinner and tea, and waited. The papers we read afterwards say the road had closed that day after vehicles skidded on the snow, then reopened to four-wheel drives only. At 23:00 we drove the Thar up and checked in at 01:20, at a hotel near the TV Tower at Sunil, still below the top. We'd paid for that night from the evening before.

Our January run proves less than it looks. That night the road was open to four-wheel drives only, so the Thar getting up says nothing about what a sedan could have done. The whole day from Greater Noida is written up with the drive from Delhi.

How much is a taxi from Joshimath to Auli?

We took the shared jeep ourselves in June 2025, but we didn't note down what we paid, so for a number we went looking. Every English guide we read said the last leg had no published price. The answer was in the Hindi papers, in Amar Ujala's Chamoli edition.

On 29 December 2024 the SDM of Jyotirmath, Chandrashekhar Vashisht, met the taxi unions, the police and the Nagar Palika on the instruction of the District Magistrate, Sandeep Tiwari. Between them they fixed the fare: Rs 1,500 one way and Rs 2,500 for a same-day return, five passengers to a vehicle, from 30 December 2024. Rajya Sameeksha reported the same figures but worded them per passenger. We read it as per vehicle, since Rs 7,500 for a carload one way would have been news in itself.

Twelve days earlier the same SDM had heard the other side. On 17 December 2024 Manoj Mehra, president of the Jyotirmath-Auli Taxi Union, told him the union ran 50 taxis and that a booking up to Auli cost Rs 2,000, or Rs 3,500 while it was snowing. The fixed Rs 1,500 came in below both.

The fare was set for the crowd plan written for New Year 2024-25: when Auli's parking fills up, tourist vehicles are parked at Ravigram Maidan and people go on by local taxi. That didn't happen to us in January 2026: the wait was for the road, and when it opened our own car went up. A year after the order, on 19 December 2025, the same SDM told taxi and hotel owners to put up rate lists, without naming a new figure, and we've found none printed since.

If you book a cab online, look at the distance before you pay. Auli is spread across two villages in the Census records, and some booking engines treat each as a separate place. When we priced this climb on Gozo Cabs in September 2026, one name came up as about 8 km for Rs 3,598 and the other as about 12 km for Rs 3,649. Plain "Auli" came up as 460 km and Rs 8,959, as if you were booking an intercity trip from the town you're standing in.

Does the road close in winter?

Yes, and our five-hour wait was one evening in a week of it. Afterwards we pieced the week together from the district papers and police statements:

• 23 January 2026: the season's first real snowfall, and the Jyotirmath to Auli road closed.
• 24 January, the day we arrived: vehicles skidded on the snow, the road closed again, then reopened the same day to four-wheel drives only. Chamoli SP Surjeet Singh Pawar confirmed both on the record.
• 25 January, our day up there: frost formed at Sunil, TV Tower and Kichad Bend, and tourist vehicles were stopped beyond TV Tower. Our hotel was at Sunil.
• 27 and 28 January: more snow left Auli under two to three feet, and the road was one of seven shut across Chamoli district that week.
• 30 January: frost was still forming from Sunil all the way to Auli, with jams at several points and more snow forecast.

We couldn't find a single official notice for any of it. The PWD's road-closure list didn't mention this road once all winter, and neither did the district, police or tourism sites. So between December and March, call your hotel or the taxi stand in Jyotirmath the morning you plan to go up, and ask what the road did overnight. That's what we'll do next time.

Is there a bus?

Only one, and it isn't much use for this climb. Uttarakhand Transport Corporation's timetable lists a single Auli-Haridwar service, 05:30 from Haridwar and 04:30 from the Auli end, which means it goes through Jyotirmath. The timetable doesn't say whether it actually climbs to the slope or stops at the stand in town, and it's timed for the long run to the plains. For a same-day transfer, plan on a shared jeep or a taxi from the stand in town. We went up by shared jeep in June 2025, after the bus from Delhi dropped us in Jyotirmath.

The ropeway that used to make all of this optional hasn't run since January 2023, and there's no date for it to reopen. The whole story is on the page on the Auli ropeway.

Should you drive up yourself?

Nav says yes, if your car and your nerves can handle snow. You save both taxi fares and come down when you like, and he drove the October trip in the Baleno.

Vandana's point is that January is a different road. It can go from clear to closed in an afternoon, and a sedan on ice, with a driver who has never handled one, is another thing entirely. Where we agree: in winter, make that morning phone call to Jyotirmath before you decide, and if either the car or the driver isn't built for snow, take the local taxi.

Joshimath to Auli FAQ

Nav & Vandana Sharma

We're a husband-and-wife travel team based in Greater Noida. Nav has been travelling across India since 2015 and does the routes, costs and logistics; Vandana joined the road in 2020 and writes the stays, food, comfort and safety.

We've been up this road three times: driving ourselves in October 2024 and January 2026, and by shared jeep in June 2025, after the bus from Delhi. The fare, the cab prices and the January road reports are from our research, each checked against the office or paper that issued it.

Corrections: hello@wctoindia.com. Tell us the page and what is wrong, and we'll fix it and date the change in the log below.