Srinagar-Leh Highway: Srinagar to Leh

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Srinagar

   This is the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, a city of canals, wooden houseboats and old mosques, where the Mughal emperors laid out gardens such as Shalimar and Nishat to take advantage of the cool air and the view across the lake. Willow, chinar and poplar trees line the roads, and in autumn the chinar leaves turn a deep orange.

   Read the complete Srinagar write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Srinagar is where the day begins. Next is Sonamarg.

2. 2. Sonamarg

   Sonamarg means meadow of gold, and in spring and early summer, when the flowers come out on the grass, the name seems fair. It is a broad, high valley of the Sindh river, at roughly twenty-seven hundred metres, about eighty kilometres north-east of Srinagar on the road to Ladakh, surrounded by snow-streaked peaks, pine forests and glaciers. In winter it is buried in snow, and it was once a stop on the old Silk Road routes that linked Kashmir to Central Asia, with caravans of traders, pilgrims and mules passing through on their way to Leh and beyond.

   Read the complete Sonamarg write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Sonamarg comes up about 79 km into the recorded legs. Next is Zoji La.

3. 3. Zoji La

   Zoji La is the door to Ladakh, and it has a reputation to match. At around 3,500 metres, it is the pass that connects the green, wet Kashmir valley with the high, dry country beyond, and the transformation on the far side is startling: one moment you are among pines and flower meadows, the next you are looking at pale, bare mountains, sand-coloured slopes and a sky of unbroken blue. The reason is simple. The Himalaya catches the monsoon on one side and leaves the other in a rain shadow, so you cross not only a pass but a climate boundary.

   Read the complete Zoji La write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   about 103 km into the recorded legs you reach Zoji La. Next is Dras, mostly downhill.

4. 4. Dras

   Dras is a place of extremes, and the first thing to know is that it is cold. Sitting at about 3,200 metres in the high valley below Zoji La, it is often called the second coldest inhabited place in the world, and winter temperatures can plunge to somewhere around minus forty degrees. The snow falls heavily and stays for months, and the road from Kashmir is usually closed by the pass through the winter and early spring. In summer, though, the valley turns green, with barley fields and willows beside the river and the bare brown ranges rising on either side.

   Read the complete Dras write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Dras, about halfway. Next is Kargil.

5. 5. Kargil

   Kargil sits at about 2,700 metres in the Suru valley in Ladakh, a town of tin roofs, apricot trees and mountains the colour of ash. Most travellers know it as a night stop on the road between Srinagar and Leh, which is about right, but it has a character of its own. Most of its people are Shia Muslims of Balti descent, and the call to prayer carries across the river valley beneath peaks that stay snowy for much of the year.

   Read the complete Kargil write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Kargil sits at 356 km, about halfway. Next is Lamayuru.

6. 6. Lamayuru

   Lamayuru looks like another planet, and the people who named the surrounding hills Moonland were not exaggerating. Wind and water have carved the pale clay slopes into a maze of ridges and spires, and on top of the largest of them sits the monastery, whitewashed and tangled, with the valley dropping away behind it. A local legend says the valley was once a lake, drained by a saint who made his way through the rock, and the geology lends some support to the idea.

   Read the complete Lamayuru write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Lamayuru comes up about 307 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fotu La.

7. 7. Fotu La

   Fotu La is the highest point on the road between Srinagar and Leh, at 4,108 metres, and it is higher than the better-known Namika La further west. It is a broad, windswept saddle with prayer flags snapping in the wind, a few signs from the Border Roads Organisation and a feeling of enormous space. The altitude is real, so do not be surprised if a short walk makes you breathless; take your time and drink plenty of water.

   Read the complete Fotu La write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   about 317 km into the recorded legs you reach Fotu La. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is Leh, mostly downhill.

8. 8. 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

   Finish at Leh. That is the ride.