Why this ride
It goes by way of Lachulung La and Tanglang La. The highest point is about 5,350 m. Lachulung La and Tanglang La are open in summer only - check it is open before you set off. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Leh–Manali Highway: Sarchu to Leh
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 238 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 3 h 15
- Journey
- One way; return travel is separate
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Scenic road chapters
Leh–Manali Highway
This part of the ride is 51 km of Leh–Manali Highway.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 51 km
Leh–Manali Highway
Cold comes early up here and stays late. Ride it with something in reserve: the summit is not the end of the work, only the middle of it. The last of the trees go and the road runs out onto open ground. The summit sits at 5328 m, and what surrounds it is rock, weather and distance.
Rider note
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 26 km
- Climb
- 269 m
- Average gradient
- 1.3%
- High point
- 5328 m
Tanglang La → Leh
269 km that neither climbs nor drops much. The road settles into the ground rather than fighting it — this is where a day makes up time without anyone trying. Third and fourth, and very little else.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 161 km
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Sarchu
Sarchu is not a town, and calling it a stop barely does it justice. It is a high, bare plateau at about 4,300 metres, on the boundary between Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh, where the Leh-Manali Highway crosses a wide, windy basin beside the Tsarap river. In the summer season, a collection of tents and camps appear on the plain, serving riders, truck drivers and travellers who need a place to sleep halfway between Manali and Leh, and in winter everything is gone and the snow takes over.
Read the complete Sarchu write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Sarchu is where the day begins. Next is Lachulung La.
2. Lachulung La
Lachulung La is the second great pass on the road between Manali and Leh, a bare, windswept saddle at 5,059 metres, with prayer flags snapping in the wind and the road clawing its way over a ridge of crumbling rock. It lies north of Sarchu and the Gata Loops, in the high desert plateau of southern Ladakh, where the air is thin and the land is a bare, tawny colour streaked with red and green minerals. There are no trees and almost no plants, only rock, snow and sky.
Read the complete Lachulung La write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Lachulung La comes up about 51 km into the recorded legs. Next is Tanglang La, climbing 269 m.
3. Tanglang La
Tanglang La is the second highest of the great passes on the road between Manali and Leh, at about 5,300 metres, and it is a place where the air is so thin that walking up a few steps feels like climbing a stair. The pass lies on the watershed between the Indus valley and the high plateau to the south, and the landscape around it is stark and vast: bare ridges of brown and grey, snowfields in the shadows, and a sky that looks very dark and very close.
Read the complete Tanglang La write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 77 km into the recorded legs you reach Tanglang La. The road climbs 269 m on the way up to it, steadily. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is Leh, mostly downhill.
4. Leh
Leh sits in the high desert of Ladakh at about 3,500 metres, in the broad valley of the Indus, with the Karakoram on one side and the Zanskar range on the other, and it is the end of the Manali-Leh highway, one of the great road journeys in the world. The last stage of that road is the best: you cross the Tanglang La, among the highest passes in the world, then drop to the Indus plain, through villages with whitewashed chortens and prayer flags, and the town appears below a hill crowned by the old Leh Palace, a nine-storey building of mud and wood modelled on the Potala in Lhasa. Behind it, the Namgyal Tsemo monastery and a ruined fort hang on the ridge.
Read the complete Leh write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Leh closes the day.
Leg by leg
Sarchu to Lachulung La
Sarchu → Lachulung La is 51 km. This is the part worth slowing down for - look through the bends and use the pull-offs.
Lachulung La to Tanglang La
Lachulung La → Tanglang La is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tanglang La to Leh
Tanglang La → Leh is 161 km. Brakes and eyes forward; the views are behind the corners, not in them.
More motorcycle rides nearby
- Leh–Manali Highway: Lachulung La to Leh · 186 km
- Manali-Leh Highway · part 2 · 177 km
- Manali-Leh Highway · part 4 · 609 km