Adi Kailash Yatra Reopening 2026: Route Open from 18 September

Update, 18 September 2026: the bridge is rebuilt and the route reopened today, 18 September, two days ahead of the 20 September fallback date. The rest of this post has been revised to match.

The wait is over, three days late. The Pithoragarh district administration had set 15 September for the second phase of the Adi Kailash Yatra, closing out the monsoon break that halted the pilgrimage through July and August. Then the road gave way twice in the run-up. A landslide blocked the S-bend stretch of the Dharchula–Tawaghat road, and on the night of 11 September the Bailey bridge over the Kulagad stream, rebuilt by the Border Roads Organisation only in late August after boulders damaged the old one, was washed away by floodwater. With that, SDM Dharchula Ashish Joshi deferred the reopening to 20 September, with the Army putting an alternative crossing in place while BRO rebuilt the bridge. BRO finished early. The bridge is back, and the route reopened on 18 September 2026. Inner Line Permit issuance started on 20 September and people have started going. You’ll get the pass, and you get it from the SDM counter itself, not online; our groups’ permits are filed batch-wise at that counter, so nothing holds up our departures.

The pause wasn’t paperwork for its own sake. In monsoon, the stretch between Tawaghat and Gunji can stay blocked for days at a time, and the administration stops issuing permits rather than send yatris into a valley where the road may not hold. The SDM has said the yatra will resume only once both the weather and the road are judged safe, so a reopening date means the crews have done their work and the district is willing to put traffic back on that road.

When our batches leave

Our autumn calendar was reset during the delay. The batches that were to leave between 15 and 17 September are closed. Every route’s first departure is now 22 September, which puts each group on the Dharchula–Gunji road a few days after the reopening, with the bridge already carrying traffic.

Route	Duration	First departure	Back home
Ex-Delhi, with Patal Bhuvaneshwar	8 days	22 September	29 September
Via Kathgodam	7 days	22 September	28 September
Classic, ex-Pithoragarh	7 days	22 September	28 September
Darshan Express, ex-Dharchula	4 days	22 September	25 September

After these, weekly 12-seat batches run on every route into the first week of November, with one exception: the 20 October batches are closed, because the valley is shut to pilgrims from 19 to 26 October for the Adi Kailash Parikrama Run (details and the dates that still work). Prices are unchanged from the summer window: starting from ₹16,500 per person on the Darshan Express and starting from ₹36,000 per person on the classic route, with the full ladder in the cost guide.

Your documents are due before the road opens

Permits are filed batch-wise at the SDM office, and we need your papers 2–3 weeks before departure. For the September batches, that window is already open. Keep these ready as clear scans: Aadhaar front and back, recent passport-size photos on a plain background, and a medical fitness certificate (the route crosses 4,500 m, so this one gets read, not waved through). Carry photocopies of everything on the route itself. The Inner Line Permit guide walks through the process and the mistakes that get applications rejected.

A note on who the permit covers: the ILP applies to Indian citizens, Aadhaar in hand, and foreign nationals aren’t issued one under current rules. NRI and OCI travellers sit in between, and their case depends on the administration’s position at the time, so message us before you plan around a date.

Is mid-September a good time to go?

It’s the window we’d pick ourselves. September skies after the monsoon are the clearest of the whole season, which matters on a yatra whose two biggest moments are line-of-sight: Adi Kailash over Parvati Sarovar, and the Om on Om Parvat. October runs quieter still, with colder nights. The month-by-month guide breaks both down.

One thing we tell every group in reopening week, because one of the first questions yatris ask us isn’t about price — it’s whether the road will hold. This year’s delay is the answer: the administration doesn’t reopen a route its own crews aren’t done with, and it pushed the date rather than send groups over a bridge that wasn’t there. Even so, for the earliest batches we confirm the road status with you on WhatsApp before you leave home. No one can promise a Himalayan road in writing, and we won’t be the first.

If you want a seat on the 22 September departures, message us on WhatsApp with your route and group size. Batches are 12 seats, and the document deadline for those first departures has effectively arrived. The complete Adi Kailash guide has every route side by side if you’re still choosing.