Himachal Pradesh – Kalatop – Explore The Unexplored

Last time in 2010 when I visited Kinnaur, Lahaul and Spiti around June, I missed going to Chandratal as the road was closed. The road to Chandratal usually gets open in July middle and usually gets closed between end September to first week of October. The road between Batal to Chandratal is scary enough to drive in couple of places and it’s quite risky to try it in too early or too late in the season. The other road which is just a trek route exists from Kunzum top to Chandratal but that’s too steep yet short and quite risky to try when its snow bound in early season. So I promised to myself to be back in this circuit again but probably in a time when approach to the lake is more likely to be opened. My objective was to camp a night near lake and those whoever visited this place surely know how difficult that is even in the peak summer months, as the places is surrounded by all high Chandrabhaga peaks and Barasigdi glaciers. It’s the sheer wind chill that makes you feel terrible since afternoon, that’s a typical Tibetan weather with high wind, tremendous chill and abrupt drop in temperature once Sun is down. So for me the best possible window to try to Chandratal was August. Now as I already visited the region two years back, I thought of making an over ambitious plan of adding Sach Pass and Pangi Valley and entering the circuit from Chamba region, traverse through Pangi Valley, Pattan Valley, Lahaul Valley, Chandra Valley, Spiti Valley and finally through Kinnaur Valley coming out to Great Indian Plains and all these in flat one week. Those who are not aware Sach Pass is arguably India’s most difficult motorable pass to cross through. The driver we decided to go with was our trusted Vinkal who drove me in my last Himachal trip. We call this as Grand Tribal Circuit of Himachal.

The itinerary and plan was as below:

Day1 – Chandigarh – Journey to Khajiar – Stay at Kalatop Forest RH
Day2 – Khajiar – Tissa – Bairagarh – Sach Pass – Killar – Stay at Killar PWD GH
Day3 – Killar – Udaipur – Tandi – Sissu – Khoksar – Stay at Khoksar PWD GH
Day4 – Khoksar – Chatru – Batal – Chandratal. – Stay at tent
Day5 – Chandratal – Kunzum Pass – Losar – Kaza – Tabo – Stay at Kungri PWD GH
Day6 – Tabo- Kalpa – Stay at Private Accommodation
Day7 – Kalpa- Narkanda – Stay at Narkanda Forest Rest House
Day 8 – Narkanda – Kalka – Board Kalka Mail at 11.55pm

This log is primarily be a photologue as in my earlier report of Kinnaur-Spiti-Lahaul, I covered most of the places in details.

Day1:

Our route was as below for first day:

Between Baddi and Nalagarh NH21A is a shame for anything called road forget about NH. As we did it by hired HP Car which doesn’t have permit to travel through Punjab we had to compromise on our route, else for approaching Kalatop I would always prefer through Pathankot – Dalhousi route any day.

Surprisingly we found the section between Swarghat to Jalwaji via Bhakra was extremely scenic and very few cars you would find and a good opportunity to embrace nature while you drive. One of my best drive in HP. In Bhakra we had a lovely breakfast with alu-parotha watching the dam just opposite to us.

From Shahpur (Point E) road became drastically bad for 20/25km which I would surely avoid if I go next time and would try taking Shahpur – Nurpur and then go up towards Lahru. In this stretch we were stopped by locals and advised not to proceed as we saw stones were coming down from mountains pretty regularly. But we were so tired after 2 days of train journey and 400km of drive, we took our chances and passing through live land slides rather than making our route any longer.

Meanwhile I called up Harsh for Kalatop’s exact location but for some unknown reason, the live road atlas somehow got confused Kalatop with Patnitop and frantically trying to rectify our route by asking us to move towards Jammu as soon as possible Later he realized we were following exactly his Sach Pass trail and helped to a great extent as he always does. As per advice form Harsh we took the Jot route from Lahru and that was really a heavenly experience, visibility was almost touching zero, we got another Sumo ahead of us who tried his best to give us side so that we could overtake him, but we are too determined to follow his backlights. That’s the best you could do in such a low visibility and in so much of a winding road.

Kalatop’s location is awesome and I would certainly return there again to stay for couple of days, not sure when that will happen as this wish list keep on increasing but never I get a chance to visit a place second time. It’s within forest area and if you have plan to visit try reaching Kalatop check post by 5.00pm. We were late and we had troubles in finding the person in check post to give us an entry there.

Some memories as I look back:

Lush Green Chamba District covered in Mystic Clouds: