Spiti Circuit · part 4

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Nako

   Nako is a village you reach after a day of mountain road, and you feel the effort as soon as you arrive. It lies at about 3,600 metres in the Hangrang valley of Kinnaur, in Himachal Pradesh, close to the border with Tibet. The village is built of stone and timber and clings to a hillside above a small lake, with willow and poplar trees around its edge and the great peak of Reo Purgyil standing in the distance, more than 6,700 metres high.

   Read the complete Nako write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Nako is where the day begins. Next is Kaza.

2. 2. Kaza

   Spiti means the middle land, the place between India and Tibet, and Kaza is its capital in the way that a cluster of low whitewashed buildings in a very large landscape can be a capital. It lies at about thirty-eight hundred metres on the bank of the Spiti river, in a wide valley of grey and ochre mountains with almost no trees, where the sky is a hard dark blue and the air is thin and dry. The climate is cold desert, with snow in winter and little rain in summer, and the people live by barley, peas and yak herding, and by the monasteries that have shaped life here for a thousand years.

   Read the complete Kaza write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Kaza comes up about 110 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kunzum Pass.

3. 3. Kunzum Pass

   At 4,551 metres, Kunzum Pass is the gate between two worlds. On one side lies Lahaul, with the Chandra river and the green fringes of the Himalayan monsoon. On the other side lies Spiti, a high, dry cold desert where the mountains are bare and brown, the sky is absurdly blue, and villages sit in oases on the valley floor. The pass is the only road link between the two valleys, and it is closed by snow for much of the year, usually opening around June and shutting again by October or earlier.

   Read the complete Kunzum Pass write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 186 km into the recorded legs you reach Kunzum Pass. Next is Manali.

4. 4. Manāli

   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.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Manali, about halfway. Next is back through Kunzum Pass.

5. 5. back through Kunzum Pass

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Kunzum Pass write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Kunzum Pass sits at 209 km, about halfway. Next is back through Kaza.

6. 6. back through Kaza

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Kaza write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Kaza comes up about 476 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Nako.

7. 7. back through Nako

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Nako write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 586 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Nako. Next is back through Kalpa.

8. 8. back through Kalpa

   Kalpa is the place where mountains stop being scenery and become an argument. The village sits at about three thousand metres on a ledge above the Sutlej valley in Kinnaur, and directly across the gorge rises Kinner Kailash, a peak of over six thousand metres that Hindus and Buddhists regard as the winter home of Shiva. At sunrise and sunset the snow on its flanks turns pink, then gold, and the effect from the village rooftops is hard to forget. Apple and apricot orchards surround Kalpa, and in autumn the trees are loaded with fruit.

   Read the complete Kalpa write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Kalpa, late in the day. Next is Shimla.

9. 9. Shimla

   Shimla is where the British came to escape the heat of the plains, and it still has the look of a Surrey town that took a wrong turn into the Himalaya. Built along a ridge at roughly twenty-two hundred metres, with pine and cedar trees and rows of red-roofed houses, it served as the summer capital of British India, and decisions affecting hundreds of millions of people were made here between May and October. The Ridge, an open promenade in the centre, is lined with Christ Church, a pale yellow neo-Gothic building of the 1850s, and the Mall, a long shopping street, runs alongside. Vehicles are restricted on the Mall and the Ridge, so you will park below and walk up.

   Read the complete Shimla write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The route ends here after 906 km.