We got late in leaving next morning for Rohtang, and managed to leave our hotel only by about 7:15 am or so. I think my intention to take some nice shots of Johnson's lodge only added to the delay in our departure. We just hoped that the traffic further up would not become too much of an issue because of our late departure. The sun was already up by the time we hit the road, and the day was partially cloudy. With the recent rains in the region, the hills were all draped in a lovely shade of green, and the play of sun and clouds added to the charm even more. Thankfully, we had got some sandwiches packed from the German Bakery (the one on the Circuit House road) the evening before. This meant no stoppages before Gramphoo at all.
The Johnson's Lodge
The climb begins
One of the manadatory Kiyang shots
Up there somewhere near the source of the fall is Marhi
Winding roads to Marhi
We were expecting the road till Marhi to be in good condition, and knew that beyond Marhi we were bound to have a bumpy ride, as is usually the case. However, we were quite surprised to see the road in poor condition after Kothi itself. It seemed that the monsoon was particularly harsh this time around on the roads with a lot of landslides. The road beyond Marhi was unimaginable. This was definitely the worst roads we'd seen till Rohtang in all our trips. The final 17 kms were done in 1st gear, sometimes switching to 4WD to ensure proper grip. And then there were stretches which were so bad that we thought it better to switch to 4L mode to ensure no skidding.
Basking in the morning sun
Marhi down below
Traf****ed
It took us an hour to do the Manali - Marhi stretch of about 34 km, and another 1.5 hours or so to do the Marhi - Rohtang top stretch of 17 kms! Such was the condition of the road. A minor traffic jam, by Rohtang standards, of about 30 minutes also increased our frustration and hopelessness of the stretch. This was the first time ever we had been stuck in any jam while climbing / descending the mighty pass, and our delayed departure was to be blamed for this. Finally, at about 10:30 am or so, we reached the top, stopped, took a U-turn for the shot below, and then immediately took another U-turn to proceed further towards Gramphoo.
At the top
At the top
Thankfully, the descent till Gramphoo was better than the climb to Rohtang, although only marginally. We managed to do this stretch of 15 km in about an hour. A small break was necessary to stretch our shaken selves. After stocking up supplies for the next two days, and with the assumption that the dhaba at Batal might be closed, we proceeded further.
A flag fluttering at Gramphoo dhaba
We had only moved another 2 km, when Aarti saw two vultures basking in the sun just a little off the road. This was quite a sight since these creatures have been pushed to the brink of being endangered due to certain chemicals used by humans on a widespread basis. Thankfully, the usage of the chemical (dieoflenac was it?) was banned a few years ago, and this led to a recovery of their population, specially in the region of Lahaul & Spiti. (Please correct me if I was wrong on any count above, starting from them being vultures).
We braked carefully, not to startle them. However, as soon as we disembarked, they flew out of sight somewhere below the hill. Not willing to give up, I started climbing down the hill on a track and after a 15 min walk was treated to a sight of about 20 of them squatting in the sun. Though focusing on them on my manual focus 70-300mm was difficult, I managed to get some focussed shots. As I inched closer to them, they flew away and were not sighted again during the trip. I ran back to the main road, and thus we had increased the time delay by another 30 min. But it was totally worth it!
Vultures?
Back on the road, ready to move ahead
The stretch till Spiti is one one of the least inhabited drives I've been upon. Even in the Changthang region one can find Changpas with their tents and flocks. But here, the only people one finds are the locals thriving on running a dhaba on the deserted highway & the PWD guys for road maintenance. Immediately after descending from Gramphoo, the road starts ascending again. The road towards Spiti is less frequented, narrow and has probably never been tarred, but still is in a better state than the Marhi - Gramphoo stretch. The drive is quite beautiful and the beauty lies in the barrenness of the stretch, which some might not appreciate. After ascending for a bit, we again started to descend, with the road now hugging the Chandra river.
Our progress on this stretch was slower than we'd expected. The recently concluded monsoon had been harsh and had taken its toll on the road, with it being marred with potholes, forcing us to keep our speed slow.
The road up ahead
A chorten right next to the road
Straight roads greeted us at times
The Chandra river stayed on our right till Batal, after which it came to our left
At times the terrain turns really rocky, reminding us of the Gaumukh region
The PWD rest house at Chhatru
The massive Bara Shigri glacier in the distance
Red, Brown, Blue & White: Colors of nature
Kiyang
The climb to Kunzum begins
A good three and a half hours later, we reached Batal. It was already 2:30 pm, and we had still an hours' drive left till the parking lot of the lake. And another 1.5 hours of walking till the lake itself. We decided not to take a break for lunch and marched on. The last time we had pitched our tent was after dusk, and that had been a disaster of a pitch. This time we intended to do it while the sun was still up. After crossing the Batal bridge, the climb towards Kunzum began. However, we were not supposed to climb till the pass at all. The detour was hardly 3 km ahead, and our heartbeats started to increase. Tanveer (tsk1979) had warned us that there were some real tough spots on the road till the parking lot. Also, Sha (BCMT id) had mentioned that it had snowed and rained quite heavily a day before. We wondered if reaching till the parking lot would be possible at all, and were quite sure that a challenging 12 km were coming up ahead.
The bifurcation towards Chandratal
The road is narrow, but beautiful
Chandra snakes up ahead
And the road did not disappoint, totally living up to its reputation of being really narrow! There were two points on the 12 km stretch where the road was so narrow that Kiyang barely managed to fit on it! Actually the road itself when blasted / made was not supposed to be narrow, but due to landslides there was a big boulder obstructing a part of the road at one point, and another landslide had led to the road giving way and falling into the river at the second narrow point. The first obstacle was more difficult, as being on the driver's side, I had no clue as to how much space I had on the passenger side. It might've been close to 6 inches maybe. So I kept Kiyang as right as possible, so much so that the footboard grazed against the boulder, but the vehicle made it through. Aarti helped, by getting down and navigating, shouting whenever I was erring. The second obstacle was where the edge of the road had fallen off, thus one tyre needed to be on a make-shift arrangement of rocks. It looked sturdy enough, and Aarti even stood over it to check. But still just to be on the safe side, we decided that we will pre-determine the angle of approach and just run through. This way the make-shift pile or rocks will not be bearing the load of Kiyang for too long a period. We did that, and voila! managed to ease through the second obstacle as well.
The first really narrow spot
The second really narrow spot
The road throughout was quite narrow, and it would be a nightmare if two jeeps were to pass each other from opposing sides. Reversing would be a dangerous maneuver. However, the road is quite straight and one has a good view of at least 2-3 km up ahead. So we were mentally noting down each corner where two vehicles could theoretically cross each other on the narrow road.
Still someway to go till the parking lot
The road widens, finally
It was not long before we reached the "parking lot". We had expected to find a dhaba there, but were disappointed to find nothing, as due to monsoon, the dhaba guys had packed up and left a week back or so. The porter was now getting ready to pack all the stuff to be carried to the camping site, including tent, food, sleeping bags, etc, weighing in all close to 20 kg... the horrible part was that the porter was none other than yours truly!