By Shishir Prashant 
PrashantNews
The Chardham yatra, which was repeatedly disrupted following a series of disasters in Uttarakhand in August this year, has finally picked up steam despite continuing inclement weather conditions including snowfall in the hill state.
The Kedarnath yatra on Wednesday created a new record with 16.56 lakh pilgrims visiting the medieval shrine breaking the last year’s record of 16.52 lakh.
In the single day footfall, nearly 21905 pilgrims visited four sacred Hindu shrines, collectively known as Chardham, as well as Hemkund Sahib till 7 PM on Tuesday (Oct 7) with Badrinath recording 5472 pilgrims, Kedarnath 6154, Gangotri 5308, and Yamunotri 4662. Hemkund contributed only 309 pilgrims.
Since the Dharali disaster on Aug 5, the Chardham yatra took downward trend due to heavy flash floods and landslides that left big trail of death and destruction in the hill state particularly in the Garhwal region. After Dharali, Syanachatti, Tharali and many more disasters that struck the hill state in a short span of 20 days, the chardham yatra was almost derailed. In the first week of September, the yatra remained suspended for four days due to IMD’s warning of bad weather conditions.
But after September 5, the pilgrimage started picking up momentum albeit in a slow manner. On September 10, nearly 8000 pilgrims visited these shrines in one day which was a noticeable improvement. The yatra started gaining momentum in real sense in the past few days (Sept 28 to Oct 4) registering a big rise of 50 percent. On Sept 28, nearly 14,408 pilgrims visited the four shrines. On Oct 4, a total of 22918 pilgrims visited the Chardham.
Significantly, 41.61 lakh pilgrims had visited the Chardham shrines till August 4, a day before the Dharali disaster. Now the total footfall has risen to 47.29 lakh this season. Experts said this figure is likely to touch 50 lakh in the coming days as there is still a big time left for the Chardham yatra to end. The doors of Kedarnath and Yamunotri shrines will close on October 23 while Gangotri will close the day after Diwali. Badrinath will be closed for the winter season on November 25 which will also mark the end of the yatra season.