The best part about any Spiti drive is always the landscape, the route to Manali via Kunzum la is always a bliss to drive through. It’s an high altitude mountain pass, the snow peak on the desert mountains gives a heavenly feel.
We were little sad that we are leaving this paradise land of Spiti but the road from Kaza to Gramphoo had more surprises installed.
We had breakfast in Batal, temperature was close to zero and extremely windy. Hot aloo paratha and chai at a lonely dhaba run by an elderly couple was something to die for in that weather. There is a diversion from here which takes you to chandra taal. Also called a Tso Chigma or the Chandrataal lake is situated at an altitude of 14,100 feet above sea level. One could see large glaciers of ice around the region.
Kunzum la is the highest motorable point in Spiti Valley. Due to the altitude it’s extremely cold and there is a small temple on the pass where it’s customary for everyone to stop by and offer their prayers.
The fun part of these rides is at many places there are small stream crossing where one needs to get down and then empty vehicle is let to cross the streams. At some places we also stopped our vehicle near the river to soak our feet in.
At high altitudes it doesn’t rain much but it snows. We were able to see good amount of snow on either side of the roads and on mountains. Because of lack of rains and low oxygen level there aren’t any greenery.
After we crossed Gramphoo it started raining heavily and could see lot of greenery and waterfalls around, that signaled we have reached the lower altitudes of Himalayas.