Rohtang pass...a reason to revisit Manali

   Manali held promises for each one of us...for   my children ,the snow at Rohtang,for me it was the verdant landscapes and for my husband Ambar it was the fried trout,  fished  straight out of the river Beas  ...he has the capacity of hunting up non- vegetarian food at the queerest of places.
  As the car rode on the meandering roads ,Manali slowly receded from our view.The weather gods were benevolent on us ( the skies were clear).... we had experienced rainfall the night before. .We were on our way to the Rohtang La ,a pass in the Pir Panjal range of the inner Himalayas, which connects  Manali in the Kulu valley to Spiti  valley on the other side. The Rohtang La is a pass in the Leh Manali highway.,It was so difficult to pass through this pass due to its biting cold and strenuous terrain that name Rohtang  in the local language means a pile of corpses.

The river Beas on the way to Manali

    The sprawling green of the deodars around us slowly gave way to the barrenness of the mountains ,which soon turned white and whiter with each turn the car took in the winding roads.We wished to capture every moment through our lens but it was not a  good idea to halt in the mountain roads ,with so many vehicles passing every instant.So we had to satiate ourselves by clicking through the car glass.

  We had started quite early ,just after breakfast and the morning rays of the sun reflected on the snow on the mountain slopes.But we had heard that in the peak season it is visited by a large number of tourists at the break of dawn,.For this reason the traffic in the early hours moves slowly.,on these roads .Since we started at about nine in the morning ,we had a very smooth ride,both ways.

  All signs of habitation slowly faded from our view ,the only people other than the tourist vehicles were the people who had set up small shacks ,for renting out the outfits  for the snow.

 The mountains  no longer  seemed at a distance,and we suddenly found ourselves in a sea of ranges, each one mightier than the other.

And there we were at the top  ..the Rohtang Pass ...a road with two mountain  walls on either side,all covered in snow .The place looked somewhat like an uneven tableland to me.

INFORMATION

 In Manali we stayed at the hotel Rohtang Manalasu,a HPTDC  property,and visited Rohtang the very next morning ,because  the weather seemed to be clear .We visited Rohtang in the same Indica we had hired from Shimla ,but one can easily visit it in buses or cars hired from Manali itself.. Information regarding vehicles and booking can be done from the many offices in Manali mall road.

One need not carry sweatshirts and warm clothing for Rohtang exclusively,as outfits and boots for the snow are easily available for hiring all along the way to Rohtang.While hiring them we must remember that haggling is a way of life in the mountains,so they can be got at half the quoted price.

 We had visited the place in the month of October,so there were no snowsports,but during season one can enjoy many snowsports and have a fun time there.