Driving Round the World: Into the High Himalaya

Road at Lower reaches of Spiti Valley

Road cut into a cliff face

Having restocked and refreshed in Rekong Peo, and obtained an Inner Line Permit to visit the Spiti Valley - it runs very close to the Chinese Border - we set off up the valley. Very soon the valley narrows and the road starts to be cut into the sides of the valley, Incredibly they are currently in the process of widening this road to being two lanes wide, involving blasting and clearing thousands of tons of rock to make a wide enough platform for the road.
Following the river up the gorge narrows to a few 10's of metres in width and the road is completely cut into the face of vertical cliffs, often seeming to overhang the river below. Once clear of the gorge the road starts to climb up hairpin after hairpin, gaining some 1500m in height. This area of India is considered a desert, with infrequent, but often heavy rain causing major landslides of the scree slopes across the roads.

Oasis of Nako

Reaching Nako at just over 3000m is like finding an oasis in the desert. Here on a levellish piece of ground on the shoulder of the mountains a permanent stream flows enabling the villagers to irrigate their terraced fields for crops of vegetables and fruit. A small tourist hub has developed round the small lake, but village life seems to continue much as it has always done. The houses are more Tibetan in their style, and the locals dress in a more Tibetan fashion, lots of colourful woven woollen fabrics for the cold winters, with both men and women wearing a very characteristic felt hat.

Nako Traditional Houses

After Nako the gradient of the road lessens, but there are places with sheer drops of a thousand feet to one side of the single track road. The scenery changes with a flatter bottomed, more open valley surrounded by snow capped peaks pouring scree down onto the road. Teams of locals are employed to clear the rocks and stones from the road each day as the erosion is a continual process and scree can be seen sliding down.

Tabo Monastery

At this peak season the valley attracts adventure travellers with several 4x4 tour groups and a lot of motorcyclists from all over India taking up the challenge.

Ki Monastery

500 year old Mummified Monk

Spring Flowers in high pastures

Chichim suspension bridge

In addition to the fabulous scenery the Spiti Valley has many traditional villages, lots perched above 4000m (and approached by narrow twisting roads) where there are flatter, and more fertile lands for crops and grazing and several large monasteries have been founded in the valley, some dating back to the 11th century.

Towards the upper reaches of the valley these are often perched defensively on crags and rock buttresses to provide protection from the invaders, who have repeatedly swept through the valley in the past. Notable monasteries are found at Tabo - a mud brick construction with very dark chapels containing very old wall murals and statues, at Dankhar where high on a cliff above the valley monks initially carved chapels out of the rock, and later added some stone built chapels all approached by a very narrow, and easily defended track, and at Ki - the largest monastery in the valley with 350 monks, set on a hill above fertile agricultural land. each monastery has a very peaceful feeling of use over hundreds of years.
At Gue high up the side of the valley a mummified monk was discovered in 2008, and is now on display with a new temple being built nearby. An extraordinary discovery, with skin, fingernails and hair well preserved.

Wonderful Rock Formations

Fantastic rock formations add to the interest, with deep ravines such as the one at Chichim where a new suspension bridge across the gorge must have improved access to the village, which so far has been virtually untouched by tourism. Back down by the main river the eroded soft rocks have provided weird pillar like structures, capped by harder rock.

Driving to Chandrital lake from Kunzum La Pass

Our aim was to reach Chandrital Lake and discovering the4500m Kunsum La Pass was open we headed for the lake along an extraordinary rough road. Surrounding the lake are spectacular 6500m snow covered peaks, and our highest and coldest camp at 4200, since Tibet, but with a spectacular morning.
Despite the pass being open the road we planned to take north will not open for many days as 4kms is still blocked due to extra heavy snowfall over the winter and subsequent avalanches and landslides which still need to be cleared.

Our only option is to return back down the valley to Rekong Peo and make the 600km detour to the road north. the road is just as spectacular on the way back down.

6500m peaks around Chandrital lake

Camping near Chandrital Lake

At Rekong Peo we discovered we had a puncture and some side wall damage, and after trying to find a suitable inner tube were told we would only get one at Shimla.

fruit growing near Shimla - note hail protection nets

A lovely, but somewhat stressful drive through the fruit growing mountains enabled us to reach Shimla in time to get a tube fitted before closing for the weekend, and a torrential thunderstorm. So now we have driven north, reaching