Spiti Trip 29th June 2018 - Part5 Kaza - Manali

Read Part4 Dhankar Monastery

The return trip to Manali took 12hours but there was a moment when we felt that we might have to spent a night in the vehicle.

We started at 6.20am from Kaza with packed breakfast.

The sky was getting blue and so we decided to make very quick stops for photography.

In fact till Lohsar which we reached around 9am mostly I did photography through my mobile.

On the way to Lohsar got 2 wonderful birds the Common Rosefinch and a very rare and first timer for me the Great Rosefinch.

After leaving Lohsar we took some photographs crossing kunzum and reaching batal at around 10.45am

Glacier view from Kunzum

Climbing down to Batal gave us some amazing views

At batal got the same birds as had got while coming 

Continued further to Chatru taking photographers on the way

At many places it seemed like the snow capped mountains were emitting smoke.

We reached Chatru by 2pm and had lunch here.

At Chatru there were lot of people sitting around in different dhabas.

First we thought it was because many trekkers must have arrived after completing the Hampta pass trek but then the driver got us the news that there is no vehicle coming from Manali since morning.

This was quite worrying because it was already 2pm so still it was around 3-4 hours to reach good road and if the road block on this road we might be stuck for long time and that too in some really harsh conditions. 

If it was near Rohtang then the chances were that it would get cleared and we would not get stuck.

So we started from Chatru towards Manali.

At many places the road was almost non-existent. It was like driving on river bed.

As we came near Gramphu we passed a vehicle from the other side and we got the news that the road had got blocked below Rohtang for 8 hours and that now it has got cleared. This news was quite relieving.

The weather started to get bad as we start to climb Rohtang and we reached Rohtang at 5pm.

At the top it was completely foggy with visibility of less than 2-3feet.

As soon as we crossed to the other side of Rohtang it became green with completely different landscape.

Finally we reached Manali by 6.30pm. 

It was quite a tiring day but the memories of last few days kept us fresh.

Even today when i am writing this blog after many months it make me feel very fresh and energized!!

Spiti Trip 28th June 2018 - Part4 Dhankar Monestary

Read Part3 - Key, Kibber, Komic and Langza

Dhankar Gompa

In the morning it was still a little cloudy.

Dhankar Gompa is situated at a height of 12,700 feet overlooking the confluence of Pin and Spiti rivers.

At Dhankar we got Momos and Thukpa finally at a small restaurant just at the base of the Monastery.

While the lunch was getting prepared we captured our camera kits - All Nikons :-)

After lunch as we started back it started to openup so we took some pics and timelapse videos.

Spiti River Bed

 While returning back to Kaza we actually got down to the riverbed of spiti and got some very interesting pictures and timelapse videos.

Read Part5 - Return to Manali

Spiti Trip 27th June 2018 - Part3 Key, Kibber, Komic, Langza

Read Part2 Kaza - Pin Valley 

This day the sky was much more cloudy than yesterday. That put off our moods a bit but still we had hope that as the day progressed we would get good weather.

Our plan was to visit Key and Kibber monasteries, Komic village - highest motorable village at 15000 feet and Langza village known as fossil village.

Key Monastery (13,600 feet)

Key has a Tibetan monastery at an altitude of 13,600 feet. It is more than 1000 years old and one of the biggest monastery in spiti region.

From the top of the monastery one gets good views of the spiti valley and the villages beyond

Kibber Village (14,200 feet)

From here we proceeded to Kibber. The altitude started to catch up and in addition the weather had turned pretty bad. We decided to have lunch here and then took a short stroll in the kibber village before proceeding towards Komic and Langza.

Langza Village (14,500 feet)



Langza is also quite at high altitude of 14,500 feet known as fossil village, as one can find lot of marine creatures fossils.

On the way to Langza we had already climbed quite a bit and the weather was getting worse.
It was quite foggy with very little light when we got a surprise sighting of mountain goats.
Around 6-8 mountain goats were relaxing very near the road

Also on the way saw some ruins and scattered villages around.

Komic Village (15500 feet)

Komic is the highest village connected by motarable road at a height of 15,500 feet.

And then came back to Kaza.

The next day we had planned to go to Chandratal.

The main objective was to capture the beautiful lake against blue sky.
But looking at today's weather condition and also some of us were hit by altitude we decided to skip Chandratal.

Later it turned out to be an excellent decision. We met a few people who were there the earlier night. They informed that it was raining, very chilly and there was no sunlight or blue sky.
Secondly the sky got clear around Kaza and we got some good pics

Read Part4 - Dhankar Monastery