CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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.
An 865 km round trip from Manāli - roughly 12 h 29 in the saddle. On the way it passes Keylong, Sarchu, Pang and Tanglang La. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 5,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
A high-altitude expedition road from Manali, Himachal Pradesh to Leh, Ladakh, via Keylong. Key character: Himalayan passes; barren plateaus; river valleys. Surface: mixed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 85 km this is Leh–Manali Highway, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
Manāli is where the plains give up and the Himalaya begins in earnest. The town sits in the Kullu valley in Himachal Pradesh, on the banks of the Beas, among deodar forests and apple orchards, with snow peaks rising behind. Old Manali, across the river, is the quieter half, a tangle of lanes, wooden houses and cafes, and in the cedar woods above the town stands the Hadimba temple, a pagoda-like wooden shrine built in the sixteenth century and dedicated to a figure from the Mahabharata. The valley has long been a stopping place for traders, travellers and, more recently, backpackers and motorcyclists.
Read the complete Manali write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Manāli is where the day begins. Next is Keylong.
Keylong is the main town of Lahaul, a high valley beyond the Rohtang Pass, and it sits at roughly three thousand metres above the Chandra and Bhaga rivers. For anyone riding north from Manali, this is the first real settlement after the climb, and the place where the road finally leaves the green side of the Himalaya and enters a drier, starker landscape. The mountains here are bare and brown, topped with snow, and the air is thin and clear.
Read the complete Keylong write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Keylong comes up 63 km in. Next is Sarchu.
Sarchu is less a town than a seasonal camp, a flat, windswept plain at about four thousand metres on the border between Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh. There are no permanent villages here, only a scattering of tented camps and a few simple dhabas that open in the summer months for travellers on the Manali to Leh road. In the middle of the Himalaya it feels oddly open, ringed by pale mountains and crossed by a stream that comes down from the snow.
Read the complete Sarchu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
127 km in you reach Sarchu. Next is Pang.
Pang is not a village so much as a seasonal camp, a straggle of tents and tea stalls on a bare high plateau in the Himalaya, and it earns its place on the Manali-Leh road by being where everyone wants to stop. The altitude is somewhere above 4,500 metres, which means the air carries about half the oxygen of sea level, and the first thing a rider notices is a thumping head and shortness of breath on any slope. Hot sweet tea and a plate of noodles taste better here than they have any right to.
Read the complete Pang write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pang, early in the day. Next is Tanglang La.
At 5,328 metres, Tanglang La is among the highest motorable passes in the world, and for many riders it is the day when the Himalaya stops being a postcard. It is the second-highest pass on the Manali-Leh Highway, after you have crossed Baralacha La and Lachulung La, and it marks the line between the high plateau of Rupshu and the Indus valley beyond. The air carries about half the oxygen of sea level, so even a short walk will leave you breathless, and the engine of your bike will feel the difference too.
Read the complete Tanglang La write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tanglang La sits at 254 km, about halfway. Next is 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Leh comes up 317 km in. Next is back through Tanglang La.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tanglang La write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
380 km in you reach back through Tanglang La. Next is back through Pang.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pang write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Pang, late in the day. Next is back through Sarchu.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sarchu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sarchu sits at 507 km, late in the day. Next is back through Keylong.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Keylong write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Keylong comes up 571 km in. Next is Manali.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Manali write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Finish at Manali. That is the ride.