Stage-3: Riding to Rohtang pass

This is one of our toughest rides not just physically but psychologically too. But I should also say it was the best and most beautiful track to ride on. This post is going to be long with lots of pictures. Fill your coffee mug.

When we reached Manali it was already very cold. Upon that we had a bad news waiting for us. Roads to Rohtang was closed due to heavy snowing. People around were not very hopeful about next day too :(
We woke up early next day but it was very very cold. We couldn't move out until 8. None of us had experience in riding in cold weather. So I wore five layers of clothings and had heavy breakfast before actually starting.

Rohtang is just 57kms from Manali. Its just the nature of the road and weather makes it difficult to reach. To our luck it had not snowed much last night and we had bright sun early in the morning. Just 7/8 kilometers in to the ride, we could see visible changes in our surroundings.

Bright sun, blue skies and clear roads. We were enjoying our roads. I was not really sure about the weather, so started clicking from the word go.


Boda's first encounter with snow. We parked our bike on the road side and played in snow.

In next few kilometers everything changed again. It was much more beautiful but more dangerous too.

We had valley on one side and rocky mountains on the other side. Riding wasn't easy even though my Yamaha was doing much better than what I expected. I was mostly riding in second and third gear.

With all four limbs at work, we used get tired often. We made best use of rest time to take pictures.



After next few kilometers we reached a point were my mates thought its very difficult to ride. I think its the effect of surroundings. All tourists parked their car and took a 4x4 taxi.

Road was wet and solid ice. It was skidding. But according me to me it was possible if we put more effort, concentrate better, stick together.Ultimately I was able to convince them and we rode further. Next four kilometers were really bad. But then we were near to our destination.

Then the roads became easy. We reached our destination quite easily. I spent time taking pictures and shooting video of beautiful Rohtang.

My friends tried skiing and rode around for fun. Then we had the best maggi noodles and were getting late. In fact we were really late as it was November.

We rode quite fast even though it was scary while coming down. Sun was not in our favor, he was competing with us.

Thankfully we had taken enough pictures while ascending so we didn't have to make many photo stops.

But then some spots made us to stop and take pictures.

Or salute these brave soldiers who built and maintained this road.

On our back we also saw a deadly accident where a truck had collided with another and had fallen into valley. I must say that reduced our speed.

We rode last few kilometers in darkness. Reached Manali completely tired but fun during the day kept us up till midnight. It was one of the most toughest rides that I have ever done and also most beautiful. Until stage 4 keep commenting. Click on the pictures for full size. Again all these pics were shot with Nokia N8.

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