By Rajeev Sharma (25thApril, 2008)
Spiti is vast barren landscape with enormous challenges to overcome like
inclement cold weather, rugged terrain and desert mountain valleys. Being a
traveling buff, extreme challenging terrains always put me on my heels and I
long to meet the challenge and venture into the unknown territory.
With few of my friends and adequate gears I hankered to confront the
challenge to explore the one of the toughest terrain of the world. On well
maintained Manali-Leh highway, we drived past Rohtang, turned right at
Grampho along the banks of the Chandra River towards the distant mountain
with its charactersitically thin white dividing streak. The white streak was
gradually clearer to us when we approached the valley through a whirling
path. When we rounded the rocky mammoth that we discovered that streak to be
a densely cascading waterfall. The jeep ride was challenging as our car was
lingered on to the boulder strewn paths.
We reached at Lohar, a picturesque village in Spiti Valley in the evening.
The captivating backdrop of mountain, stars and inconceivable tranquility
was however short lived as we all soon suffered from altitudinal sickness
that ranged from irritability to headache and downright insomnia. But our
lure of exploration is much greater than our suffering and soon we set off
in the direction of Spiti's multifarious landscape. It was like mini Tibet
where stark landscape dominated by partial vegetation, treeless terrains and
clusters of variegated flowers. We visited the desolate hamlets that dotted
the valley. There were monasteries everywhere as Spiti is predominantly a
Buddhist region. We visited the Tabo monastery, which is one of the oldest
monastery in the world and preserved to study and excel in Buddhism.
Next morning we visited villages of Pangmo, Rangrik and Kibber where
villagers grow plentyful harvests of potato, barley and wheat. All of us
wanted to stay for some more time but again there were challenges ahead of
us and said bye to the amazing Spiti valley.
Related Links
Manali
Shimla
Leh Ladakh
Himalaya
Adventure On Mountains
Trekking
Skiing
