RISHIKESH
28km and a 1,650m elevation gain gets you a genuine Himalayan panorama (Gangotri, Chaukhamba, Swargarohini on clear days) that most Rishikesh visitors never see because it requires leaving before dawn — book a shared sunrise taxi the night before, they fill up in peak season.
Kunjapuri Devi Temple, perched at about 1,676m on a ridge roughly 15km from Rishikesh, is one of the 52 Shakti Peethas of Hindu tradition, sites said to mark where parts of the goddess Sati's body fell after Shiva carried her corpse across the cosmos; here the upper torso ('kunja') is believed to have fallen. It is one of three Siddha Peethas of Tehri Garhwal, forming a sacred triangle with the Surkanda Devi and Chandrabadni temples, and tradition credits the 8th-century philosopher Adi Shankaracharya with reviving and systematizing worship at the site. Its ridge-top position gives unobstructed Himalayan sunrise views over peaks like Chaukhamba and Bandarpunch, which has made it one of the region's most popular pre-dawn pilgrimage treks.
