We travelled 650kms to spend a night at 3950m (Rohtang Pass, India)

I am writing today's post after 2 weeks. The reason for my delay is my travelling. This time I went to volunteer in a road running event and that too on a highway which is very famous among adventure loving tourists. I stayed for 5 days and 5 nights in this event organized on the Manali-Leh highway. Here I supported the runners of the 480 km long category. So let's go to the Trans Himalayan land.

Yesterday we reached Solang Valley from Gurugram in about 12 hours by driving a car. Stayed in Solang at night and today we got up early in the morning and hiked to Anjani Mahadev...the blog of this hike will also be in front of you soon. After the hike, we shopped for the necessary items related to the event in Manali and collected all the necessary items by about 4 pm. After 4 pm all our 8 vehicles were ready to be loaded with the goods.

After loading hydration and runners' bags in all the vehicles, the vehicles were sent to a place called Gulaba. This was done because no vehicle is allowed to cross the Gulaba check post at night. 4 vehicles went to Gulaba and we took 4 with us and left for Manali. Since it is the month of June, tourists are at their peak in Manali. There was a terrible traffic jam from Palchan to Manali Bridge.

By the way, this happens with us every year, so we leave about 4 hours before the start of the race. It took us two and a half hours to get out of the jam. You can imagine, it took two and a half hours to cover a distance of just 14 km. After parking all the four cars in the official parking, we reached the start line with the necessary items of the event in our hands, which is Manali Mall Road. The race started from here at 10 pm, in 5 minutes we put up the inflatable gate and after starting the race, we got settled in our respective vehicles.

Now the job of our 4 vehicles is to give hydration to the runners every 5 km. I set up the first, fourth, seventh and eleventh hydration points. After Kothi, the runners have to enter the forest, here in the last few years we have seen Himalayan bears crossing the road in this event. To keep the runners safe, we kept the distance small and kept shouting loudly. By 2 am, the runners started reaching Madhi, which is located at 3500 meters and the distance till here is 35 km.

Till now I had not clicked any photos because it was so dark and on top of that I had to perform my duty properly. Now when it is about to be 5 o'clock and the sunset is about to happen, I clicked some pictures with my Canon 77d. Manali, Solang and Barua villages visible below are buried under the clouds. The pink light of the sun has spread like a sheet on Pir Panjal. The sky behind Hanuman Tibba has turned from yellow to orange. Everything feels magical.

I click a photo of Rishi Beas temple from a distance, a very cold wind is blowing. The temperature must be sub zero. My fingers are getting cold and it is becoming very difficult to hold the camera body in my hand. Still I sit on the ground and click photos of small yellow flowers blooming here which are looking very beautiful. At around 6 in the morning we were standing on Rohtang Pass whose height is 3980 meters. This pass is the first pass of this highway.

There are some empty shelters here which have lost their existence in the winter snowfall. There are tents of shepherds, shepherds are really the kings of the mountains because they live wherever they want and spend the night in the most difficult place. Nature itself takes care of them. There are two vans parked here, these vans belong to the people who sell goods at Rohtang, when the sun comes out then people will take out their goods from these vans and sell them to the tourists who have come to visit here.

Due to not being able to sleep the whole night, my eyes are burning and sleepy. I am also thinking that if only I had to serve the next hydration point, I would have seen the King of Lahaul, Ghepan, under the umbrella of sunrise. But here at Rohtang Pass, the views are no less. That's all for today. This journey will continue for 5 days in which the runner has to run 480 km and we have to accompany him. See you in the next post.

Disclaimer: This post is originally written in Hindi and I have used Google Translator to translate the Hindi text in English. All the photos have been clicked by me from canon 77d (55-250mm) and edited on laptop lightroom app, post thumbnail created in adobe photoshop.

My posts cannot be reshared or posted on any other platform by anyone without my permission.

[//]:# (!worldmappin 32.37406 lat 77.25618 long We travelled 650kms to spend a night at 3950m (Rohtang Pass, India) d3scr)