All the way to solang nala.May 20th

The day was new. The weather was clear to start with but it became cloudy by the time we reached Kunzum pass and it was raining by the time we reached Rohtang pads The distance was only around 210km, but due to the steep turns & bad roads conditions, it took us almost 8 hrs to complete the trip. The following photos will prove this to you… The two passes had just been cleared 2 days back and very few vehicles had started crossing it. Pass was supposed to officially opened for vehicles after a few days. The road (or whatever was there of it) was really in bad condition after the Kumzum pass and at places was it was quite precarious.
As you may have observed, there was snow all over the road & streams used to pass from these roads. A vary tiring day, on the way, we gave lift to a doc. We reached Solang nala almost at 8:00 clock in the evening. It was the dusk of course. We then relaxed in a hotel called hotel Iceland and had a hot, spicy and delicious pizza and then slept.

 Early morning in a village on route from Kaza to Kunzum

 

Spiti valley is one of most sparsely populated places in Himachal. Most villages have a population of 30 to 150 people. But all of them have electricity and schools are there within 4-5 Km
Village folks waiting for a ride to go to Dhankar monastery for the big Buddh Pournima celebrations


























The road get totally eroded or washed out during winters and has to be repaired every year

Kunzum pass (approx 4560 meters)

Kaka's Pajero makes a big splash

The road was still not opened officially and snow clearing was in progress at places

Just approaching Rohtang pass (approx 3950 meters). On the other side of the pass (within 1 Km) there was huge crowd of tourists. Good that they did not think of coming this side :)