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!!