Best Time to Visit Auli: What the Last Four Winters Did

For snow at Auli, aim for the second half of January to mid-February, not the December to February that travel pages such as SOTC's give. That's what four winters of dated reports say, 2022-23 to 2025-26, and it's how our own snow trip went: that winter's first real snow reached Auli on 23 January 2026, and we were up in it on the 25th.

December left the slope short of snow in three of the four; the exception, 2024, had tourists skiing by Christmas. In three, the snow that mattered came in the second half of January. In two, 2022-23 and 2024-25, the national championship was called off for lack of snow, so even the best window comes with no promise.

If snow isn't why you're going, the answer changes. GMVN's own best-time range for Auli is March to May and October to November. For a friend's first visit I'd say October; Vandana would say early June, for the greenery, the light clothes and the forest walks. Both are in the months without snow.

We re-checked this page on 10 October 2026: the Chamoli papers in Hindi first (Amar Ujala and ETV Bharat), then English reports, and ETV Bharat's report of the state's events calendar. GMVN's site turned us away, so its best-time range is as we last read it, on 8 September 2026; the Sources note marks the other sources we couldn't read again. Our three trips are from our trip sheets, booking confirmations and our own account.

The 2024-25 row is the one to read twice. Snow came on time that December, light from the 8th and 1 to 1.5 ft by the 30th, and the season still never held enough for the championship. Even an on-time December doesn't settle a season on its own.

Is December to February really Auli's ski season?

Travel pages give December to February as Auli's ski season, SOTC's among them, or December to March, as Veena World's does, and GMVN's own website says December "heralds the beginning of the skiing season". In the four winters above, December never carried the season on its own. Going by what turned into skiable snow, the best odds are the second half of January to mid-February: a narrower and less convenient answer than "December to February", and the one the record supports.

March is the tail. snow-forecast.com's modelled averages, built from eleven years of its own weather data, give it about 3 cm of snow a week against February's 8, and we found no dated report of a March slope fit for the national event in any of the four winters. In 2025, Scroll.in reported a few days of stable snow on the gentle slopes after each of three falls between January and early March. Snow can still fall in March: on 15 March 2026 it whitened Auli overnight, and by the next morning, Amar Ujala reported, the sun was melting it fast at most places. If you've already booked December, our Auli in December guide is written for you.

Our day in the snow, 25 January 2026

That winter's first real snow fell on 23 January, and I drove us up from Greater Noida in our Thar the next day. We reached Jyotirmath at quarter to six that evening and got to our hotel below the top in the early hours of the 25th; the wait for the road and the climb in the dark are on the page about the last climb.

In the morning we looked at the snow from the room, got ready, had breakfast and went up towards Auli. We walked about the open snowy areas taking photos, then followed a snow trail through the trees, with a rest and a meal in between. In the evening we were back at the hotel for tea, chess and the bonfire. What I remember most from January is the snow on the slopes and the trees.

In the main snow area people were taking photos, walking about and playing in the snow, and on the slope there were people with ski equipment too. That day a local offered a short beginner skiing session at Rs 1,000 a person; we carried on with our walk and our photos. Vandana remembers plenty of movement in the main area, families, couples and people with cameras, and more quiet towards the forest trail. Walking in the sun in a jacket was comfortable, she says, but she felt the cold at once whenever she stopped or the wind blew, and at night, even in a cap, gloves and a jacket, she didn't feel like sitting outside for long.

The long drive had tired me, I felt better after some sleep, and we took breaks on the walk. Vandana, sluggish that morning after the late arrival, got ready at her own pace and felt fresher as the day went on. We had driven straight up from the plains, which the altitude advice on the last-climb page says not to do.

How many days to keep, by season

For snow, I'd tell a friend to go in the second half of January or in February, and to keep five or six days from Delhi, with two full days at Auli. Next winter I'd break the drive at Rishikesh, reach the hotel in daylight and keep an extra day, rather than spend another arrival night waiting for the road. And before leaving home, I'd ask the hotel for fresh photos of the snow and an update on the road.

For a first visit without snow, I'd give a friend from Delhi five days in October: a night at Rishikesh, a day to reach Jyotirmath and walk the market, a day at Auli for the meadow, the forest walks and the views with a night somewhere with a view, then back to Rishikesh and home. The days from Jyotirmath are set out on the last-climb page, and the drive itself on the Delhi page.

Why "first snowfall" headlines put Auli's season too early

Uttarakhand's papers run "season's first snowfall" headlines several times a winter, and the three below weren't about Auli's slope. We think it's one reason English-language travel pages get this topic wrong: find a "first snowfall" story and it's easy to assume it meant Auli, when it usually means somewhere higher and colder.

• 5 November 2025: the season's first snow was at Badrinath. Auli and Jyotirmath (Joshimath) weren't mentioned.
• 2 January 2026: the "first snowfall" story that winter was about Niti Valley, and it named Auli as one of the spots still empty: with no snowfall, ETV Bharat's Chamoli report said, Auli and Aizen Top, Uttarakhand's famous tourist spots, lay deserted.
• 8 to 9 October 2026: snow fell on Hemkund Sahib, Badrinath and "the high peaks" of Auli while it rained in Jyotirmath, ETV Bharat reported: snow on the peaks, not on the slope.

Auli sits at roughly 2,500 to 3,050 m. Badrinath, Hemkund and the Niti valley are higher and colder, and they whiten weeks to months before Auli does, so a page built from those headlines can put Auli's season three to eleven weeks early. If you check the news yourself before booking, read the Hindi reports past the headline. "बर्फबारी" (snowfall) alone tells you nothing: you want Chamoli and Auli named in the first paragraph, and the slope, not the peaks.

How long does snow last in Auli once it falls?

Not long, at least in 2026. After the late-January fall, Rakesh Ranjan, technical officer and secretary of the Uttarakhand Winter Games Association, told ETV Bharat that two feet of fresh snow is compacted to about a foot before events can run, and the association's technical officials said that if the events weren't held within 15 to 20 days, the snow would start to melt fast. By 5 February the lower slope was reported bare and melting. That's one season's deadline, not a rule, but it fits the advice: go within two or three weeks of a real fall, which a single "it snowed" headline can't tell you and the four-winter table above can.

Depth matters as much as timing. Half a foot of snow is enough to teach a beginner; a professional event needs at least four feet, according to Santosh Kunwar, founder of the Auli Skiing School, speaking to Scroll.in in March 2025.

Don't count on artificial snow. We found no report of Auli's snow-making machines running in the last two winters, and in January 2026 campaigners described the system as run down.

February 2026, the season that worked, just

The 2026 Shitalkin Winter Carnival and National Skiing Championship ran 13 to 16 February, three weeks after the first real snow, and it's the strongest single data point on this page. Seventeen teams took part, including Army and ITBP sides. More than 15,000 visitors reached Auli across the four days, and by 17 February the Jyotirmath nagar panchayat had collected 13 quintals of plastic waste.

It ran on what snow was left. The main Nanda Devi slope was melting fast, so for the first time the events were split over two slopes, snow was brought in from elsewhere to fill the thin spots, and the course was started higher up and kept short, Amar Ujala reported on 10 and 11 February. On 15 February it held a night skiing event under floodlights, which the organisers called India's first.

That makes the carnival calendar a better booking anchor than any month name. The organisers call it off when the snow isn't there, as they did in 2023 and 2025, so a carnival that's still on as its dates approach is the best signal you'll get. In 2026 Auli was given the hosting in November 2025, with the dates to be set after the snow came, and they moved at least twice before it ran. For 2027, the state's revised events calendar, reported at the start of October 2026, puts Auli's winter carnival and Winter Games in February 2027, with no dates. Expect them to follow the snow again.

How often is the championship called off?

About one winter in two: the national championship has failed to run at Auli in at least seven winters since 2012, by the most careful count we could source.

How far ahead should you book Auli?

Auli's Christmas and New Year rooms sell out weeks before anyone knows whether there'll be snow. In 2025, GMVN Auli was full for the last week of December by the 8th, and that season's first real snow came on 23 January. The occupancy reports are on the hotels page.

A fixed booking in the second half of January or early February is fine for most trips if you keep some flexibility on the ground: watch the forecast the week before, and if it's dry, spend the days on the meadow and the view instead of the slope. It's a real risk only when skiing is the whole reason for the trip. Then hold your dates, wait for the carnival announcement and book around it, even with less lead time, and ask your hotel to confirm slope conditions before you pay. If you must book early for a holiday date, book something you can cancel.

The road is part of the timing too. When snow does arrive, the road above Jyotirmath can tighten to four-wheel drives only within a day; in January 2026, tourists' cars were stopped at the TV Tower. That was a police decision at a checkpoint, and we've never found an order published for one. None of this changes which month you pick, but once you've picked, it's the first thing to ask your hotel about. What closed and when is in the day-by-day road log.

Rules and risks, season by season

• Winter, the road: four-wheel drives only above the TV Tower when it snows, frost on the bends, and closures with no notice. Beyond the 4x4 rule, the administration can stop tourists going up at all on a weather alert, as it did in early March 2025, after the avalanche at Mana; Auli reopened on 4 March.
• Winter, the height: Jyotirmath is about 1,875 m and the top of Auli about 3,050 m. A night in Jyotirmath before going up breaks the climb; the advice and what we did are on the last-climb page.
• Winter, Gorson: at New Year 2021-22 two tourists were found dead in the snow on Gorson, the meadow above Auli, which lay under snow with nowhere to stay the night, Amar Ujala reported on 2 January 2022; the report gives no cause.
• Monsoon, the highway: landslides on the Badrinath highway below Auli. In 2026 it closed for hours at a time, on 2 and 23 July among other days, and by Amar Ujala's count in September it never stayed shut for more than 24 hours that season. In late September 2026 a red alert still stopped the Char Dham yatra for two days.
• Summer, camping on Gorson: the rules changed in 2026; see the months without snow.

For December, Vandana would stay in Jyotirmath or somewhere easy to reach at Lower Auli and go up by day. The full choice is on the hotels page, and what to pack for winter and for June on the last-climb page.

Auli month by month

One line a month. The snow months are argued above.

The ropeway only affects how you get up. The Joshimath-Auli cable car has been closed since January 2023. In September 2026 the Chief Secretary reviewed its rebuild, extended to Gorson, among the state's ropeway projects and told officials to finish pending work in set time limits, with no stage or date given; later that month the state's 51-project plan listed it as proposed. In every month in this table, the way up is by road. Its full record is on the ropeway page.

How cold does Auli get?

Several Auli pages carry a month-by-month temperature table, and we've left ours out. Every version we could trace runs back to a private travel portal. None comes from a weather station at Auli, and the January minima, minus 1 to minus 4, look more like a daily average for the wider area than an overnight low on the slope.

The one dated reading we could trust runs colder: a guest at a lodge on the Auli slope recorded minus 10 C in February 2016. Take that as the shape of it, and pack for colder than any average you read.

Is Auli worth visiting without snow?

Yes: two of our three trips were outside the snow season, and both of us would send a first-time visitor in one of those months. I'd say October, and Vandana early June, or October if what you want is mountain views and cool weather. Auli's official best-time range, by GMVN's own listing, is March to May and October to November, with March the tail of the snow.

In October 2024 I drove us up to Lower Auli and we walked out over the open slopes, the meadow and the edge of the forest. Those were the clearest mountain views of our three trips: from the meadow and a rocky viewpoint, the far snowy ridges stood clear. In early June 2025 we came by bus and shared jeep and stayed two nights at the top, and walked from GMVN out to the meadow and along the trails through the trees, stopping at benches and on the open grass. The greenery was the best thing about that trip; the main area had people about, and a little further on it was quieter. The far peaks came and went in cloud.

Gorson Bugyal, the alpine meadow above Auli's slopes, is the main draw. One 2026 source describes the trail as fully accessible with no ice by early May, with wildflowers and rhododendrons in bloom, and calls May "the best month for trekking" at Auli. Snow doesn't clear on a schedule, though: in June 2021 a dated account found a foot or two of old snow still on the trekking route, and called that an unusual year.

Plan Gorson as a day trek from Auli. A 2018 High Court order barred overnight stays on the state's high meadows; the Supreme Court set that ban aside in July 2026, and a report on what that meant for Chamoli's meadows named Gorson among them. Then, in September 2026, the forest department stopped night stays on the meadows again after a complaint about tents at Vedni Bugyal, allowing them only for religious yatras. We couldn't find what applies at Gorson itself now, so ask the forest office in Jyotirmath before you plan a night there.

If you've come to see the mountains themselves, go in October, as we did; September too, by an old account of the adjoining trail. Our own October photographs, on this page and in our Auli guide, show the high range clear. Post-monsoon air is what clears the view, and Nanda Devi, one of the highest and most striking peaks visible from this ridge, is reported at its best in this window by an account of the adjoining Kuari Pass trail, over a decade old. It lines up with GMVN's October-November recommendation and with what we saw.

The shoulder months come without winter's road restrictions, but the weather can still turn fast: a pre-monsoon storm in May 2025 dumped enough rain in five minutes to leave standing water across parts of Auli. Pack in layers for a cold morning and a warmer afternoon.

What do you do if there's no snow when you arrive?

Do what we did in June and October. Vandana's plan for a day with no snow: the mountain views in the morning, then the meadow and a forest walk, tea and photos with a sit-down in between, and the market down in Jyotirmath. That's how we spent those two trips, she says, and we enjoyed them a lot. The mountains are there whatever the snow does, but clouds decide whether you see them: ours came and went in June and stood clear in October.

Jyotirmath has its own winter reason to visit. When Badrinath temple closes for the season, its worship moves to two nearby sites, Yog Badri at Pandukeshwar and the Narsingh Temple in Jyotirmath itself. So in the very months when Auli's snow may not have arrived yet, there's a reason to be in town that has nothing to do with skiing.

Best time to visit Auli: FAQ

Nav & Vandana Sharma

I'm Nav, and with my wife Vandana I run WCTO from Greater Noida. I've been travelling across India since 2015 and do the routes, costs and logistics; Vandana joined the road in 2020 and writes the stays, food, comfort and safety.

This page draws on all three of our Auli trips, one in each season it covers: 17 to 20 October 2024 in our Baleno, 2 to 5 June 2025 by bus and shared jeep, and 24 to 27 January 2026 in our Thar. The photographs are ours, from those trips. The four-winter snow record, the booking reports and the carnival dates are our research, each checked against the paper or office that issued it.

Corrections: [email protected]. Tell us the page and what is wrong, and we'll fix it and date the change in the log below.