Prajakt_23
Active Member
Day 9: Its time to bid adieu to Spiti!
We woke up early since it was a long trip scheduled on that day. We wanted to check out Chandratal before moving further to Manali, Kulu and maybe Bhuntar on that same day. It was raining since early morning and looked like clouds were there to stay for the next couple of days. We continued on NH-5 all along and stopped across Key Monastery to take some photos early in the morning. The only positive experience worth mentioning was the view of the double rainbow we saw enroute.
We then reached another police check post (mostly around Losar) where they registered our details and then we continued our journey towards the Kunzum pass.
As we started the Kunzum pass ascent, it started raining heavily. The road to the pass itself was a single lane road making it difficult to give pass to overtaking as well as vehicles coming from the opposite side. There was no visible marking of the top of the pass, but we could see Kunzum mata temple’s entry road on our right. The visibility at this point was barely a few meters. So, we decided to continue our journey towards Chandratal. From this point onwards, the road condition deteriorated severely and we were just barely navigating through smaller potholes, trying to avoid the big ones. Somehow the tempo travellers were continuing uninterrupted, without even slowing down on those roads. It continued to rain heavily and the cloud line had come even lower than normal. We had kind of made up our mind to skip Chandratal due to ongoing heavy rains. After a daunting journey for more than an hour, we finally saw a diversion towards the Chandratal on our right. But we unanimously decided to skip it to reduce the risk of another landslide or road block due to ongoing heavy rain.
We soon reached Batal and saw a few cars and tempo travelers stopping at the famous Chacha chachi dhaba. But since we had some ready made snacks available with us, we decided to continue further.
And let me say this loud and clear. If you have read somewhere that there is a motorable road between Batal and Gramphu, please dont believe it!! That's just a river bed full of boulders few small and few big. And since vehicles still keep moving through it, they have just got aligned themselves giving it a perception of presence of road. Period!
I saw a couple of unfortunate guys who were trying to navigate honda city and wagon-R on this patch. On one occasion, 4 guys were walking along all 4 corners of the wagon-R in that rain, and guiding the driver since the car was getting stuck in those boulders every now and then!!
Yes, I understand the extreme weather conditions and the topology is not in much favor of maintaining good quality roads there. But when I saw huge investments being made on maintaining roads which were barely being used, I couldn't control my feelings. This route needs some serious maintenance, and I mean it! Even after driving an automatic vehicle, my right knee started paining till we reached Chatru after continuous driving for a couple of hours through that slush and boulders. To make the matter worse, it was continuously raining all along and we even gave a safe pass to HRTC bus coming from the opposite side on that single lane route!!
I had been to Chatru once when I did the Hampta pass trek a few years back. So, I thought that the situation will improve, once we cross it. But I was wrong! The biggest problem beyond Chatru was slush and water crossings on the road. Fortunately, for most of the water crossings, they have now made smaller bridge type arrangements, helping the water to flow uninterrupted underneath it. But in some places, the ferocious water was overflowing on the road, making it tricky. After a really tiring journey, we finally connected to a tarmac road, which on our right side was going towards Atal Tunnel.
This road and the road we had been driving along since morning, were poles apart. This was a 4 lane smooth, fresh tarmac road which took us to Sissu, which is the North portal of Atal tunnel. I think it took us some 8-9 minutes to cross the beautiful Atal tunnel with a steady speed of 40 kmph.
After coming out from the south portal, we continued our journey in the rain through Solang valley. Mostly when we were around Palchan, we saw one decent restaurant advertising south indian food! We really wanted to try something else other than parathas. So, we made it a point to stop there for lunch, ordered a variety of south indian dishes and satisfied our taste buds. After topping up our diesel tank, we continued further. We had thought of crossing Manali, Kullu, Bhuntar and then try to reach Mandi or Sundar Nagar for a night stay. While crossing Kullu, we came across a wholesale apple market where we picked up 10 kgs of royal red and delicious green apples each. After crossing Bhuntar the road condition deteriorated again. This time it was tunnel construction mainly which had resulted in cement slush all across the road, resulting in very slow moving traffic in more than a couple of places. Soon, it was dark and we decided to stop near Mandi instead of reaching Sundar Nagar to avoid the risk of driving on poorly lit bad roads. We identified an ok type hotel on the highway itself and stayed there for the night. We drove for around 300 kms on that day.
We woke up early since it was a long trip scheduled on that day. We wanted to check out Chandratal before moving further to Manali, Kulu and maybe Bhuntar on that same day. It was raining since early morning and looked like clouds were there to stay for the next couple of days. We continued on NH-5 all along and stopped across Key Monastery to take some photos early in the morning. The only positive experience worth mentioning was the view of the double rainbow we saw enroute.
We then reached another police check post (mostly around Losar) where they registered our details and then we continued our journey towards the Kunzum pass.
As we started the Kunzum pass ascent, it started raining heavily. The road to the pass itself was a single lane road making it difficult to give pass to overtaking as well as vehicles coming from the opposite side. There was no visible marking of the top of the pass, but we could see Kunzum mata temple’s entry road on our right. The visibility at this point was barely a few meters. So, we decided to continue our journey towards Chandratal. From this point onwards, the road condition deteriorated severely and we were just barely navigating through smaller potholes, trying to avoid the big ones. Somehow the tempo travellers were continuing uninterrupted, without even slowing down on those roads. It continued to rain heavily and the cloud line had come even lower than normal. We had kind of made up our mind to skip Chandratal due to ongoing heavy rains. After a daunting journey for more than an hour, we finally saw a diversion towards the Chandratal on our right. But we unanimously decided to skip it to reduce the risk of another landslide or road block due to ongoing heavy rain.
We soon reached Batal and saw a few cars and tempo travelers stopping at the famous Chacha chachi dhaba. But since we had some ready made snacks available with us, we decided to continue further.
And let me say this loud and clear. If you have read somewhere that there is a motorable road between Batal and Gramphu, please dont believe it!! That's just a river bed full of boulders few small and few big. And since vehicles still keep moving through it, they have just got aligned themselves giving it a perception of presence of road. Period!
I saw a couple of unfortunate guys who were trying to navigate honda city and wagon-R on this patch. On one occasion, 4 guys were walking along all 4 corners of the wagon-R in that rain, and guiding the driver since the car was getting stuck in those boulders every now and then!!
Yes, I understand the extreme weather conditions and the topology is not in much favor of maintaining good quality roads there. But when I saw huge investments being made on maintaining roads which were barely being used, I couldn't control my feelings. This route needs some serious maintenance, and I mean it! Even after driving an automatic vehicle, my right knee started paining till we reached Chatru after continuous driving for a couple of hours through that slush and boulders. To make the matter worse, it was continuously raining all along and we even gave a safe pass to HRTC bus coming from the opposite side on that single lane route!!
I had been to Chatru once when I did the Hampta pass trek a few years back. So, I thought that the situation will improve, once we cross it. But I was wrong! The biggest problem beyond Chatru was slush and water crossings on the road. Fortunately, for most of the water crossings, they have now made smaller bridge type arrangements, helping the water to flow uninterrupted underneath it. But in some places, the ferocious water was overflowing on the road, making it tricky. After a really tiring journey, we finally connected to a tarmac road, which on our right side was going towards Atal Tunnel.
This road and the road we had been driving along since morning, were poles apart. This was a 4 lane smooth, fresh tarmac road which took us to Sissu, which is the North portal of Atal tunnel. I think it took us some 8-9 minutes to cross the beautiful Atal tunnel with a steady speed of 40 kmph.
After coming out from the south portal, we continued our journey in the rain through Solang valley. Mostly when we were around Palchan, we saw one decent restaurant advertising south indian food! We really wanted to try something else other than parathas. So, we made it a point to stop there for lunch, ordered a variety of south indian dishes and satisfied our taste buds. After topping up our diesel tank, we continued further. We had thought of crossing Manali, Kullu, Bhuntar and then try to reach Mandi or Sundar Nagar for a night stay. While crossing Kullu, we came across a wholesale apple market where we picked up 10 kgs of royal red and delicious green apples each. After crossing Bhuntar the road condition deteriorated again. This time it was tunnel construction mainly which had resulted in cement slush all across the road, resulting in very slow moving traffic in more than a couple of places. Soon, it was dark and we decided to stop near Mandi instead of reaching Sundar Nagar to avoid the risk of driving on poorly lit bad roads. We identified an ok type hotel on the highway itself and stayed there for the night. We drove for around 300 kms on that day.
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