Bird’s eye view: Today was a day trip to Badrinath, a 100 km round trip. There were a lot of imponderables in the trip - how cold it would be, how crowded it would be (being the opening day), how easy would parking be. But all in all it was a great trip. We left a little early, at 7.15 am, and we returned at 3.00 pm, including a few other stops that I will talk about. Weather was sunny throughout, except for a few drops near the end. Badrinath is at 10,000 ft, and driving in the lap of snow clad mountains all through was a different experience. Leaving Joshimath (7.15 am): We had debated long and hard yesterday as to when to leave. Should we leave really really early, pre-dawn, so as to have enough time for a darshan ? Finally, mentally at least, we had accepted that darshan may not be possible for us, since it might mean queuing for around three hours. A lot of weather sites, Accuweather included, were predicting 0-5 degC, and snow, which sort of put a dampener on ou...