Gaurikund Hot Springs

Gaurikund Hot Springs are sacred geothermal springs at the pilgrimage base camp of Gaurikund in the Rudraprayag district of Uttarakhand, India, at 1,982 meters altitude on the Mandakini River — the traditional starting point of the 14-kilometer trek to Kedarnath Temple, one of the twelve Jyotirlinga shrines of Shiva and among the holiest sites in Hinduism. Hindu tradition holds that the goddess Parvati performed tapas (austerities) at Gaurikund to win Lord Shiva as her husband, and pilgrims have bathed in the bicarbonate thermal springs here before beginning the ascent to Kedarnath for centuries, using the sacred waters for ritual purification in preparation for the darshan at the mountaintop shrine. The Kedarnath pilgrimage, which draws hundreds of thousands of devotees each season before the valley closes for winter under heavy Himalayan snowfall, makes Gaurikund's thermal springs one of the most spiritually significant geothermal bathing sites in Asia.