a Jeep safari to Chandertal lake in Spite Valley in Himachal Pradesh

 Chandertal lake- 140 kms from Manali

Altitude - 4250 m above sea level

My experience.

We were a group of 12 people planning a weekend tour to spite valley, Chandertaal lake.

We started early in the morning at 7 am from Manali and we reached Rohtang at around 10:30 am.

We had 2 gypsy cars and one that jeep, which was all but comfortable. We carried gas cylinder, barbecue, gas oven and some raw material for cooking along with utensils.

It was a planned 2 day tour.

Most hectic and tiring journey was now about to start beyond the Rohtang pass towards the spite valley.

The road condition was bad or rather I would say very bad. The covid situation across the country had made things worse, the public work department and not done any repairment of the road for around a year.

The weather and road conditions had started to take its toll, some of our fellow members started feeling dizzy and headache due to less oxygen, some guys vomited. To reach Chhatru around 50 km from Gramphu it took whole lot of time, 4 hours to be precise.

We halted for tea and lunch at Chhatru and around 2 pm we started our onward journey to Chandertal lake. via Batal.

The stretch from Chhatru to Batal was the most challenging one, due to bad road condition. Fatigue and body ache was quite visible in every member.

At 5 we reach Batal, entered chacha chachi dhaba and had some snacks. The elderly owners of the dhaba (restaurant) for very gentle and nice.

After 40 minutes of halt we headed to the lake.

At around 7 pm we were near the parking area of the lake, beyond which vehicles were not allowed.

Since it was summer time and days were long, we managed to reach lake periphery on time and pitched our tents in light.

Only mistake, we made was of not carrying solar lambs, while we started preparing food, darkness and well creeped in. So the food was made using the lights of mobile phone. After dinner, we entered our alpine tents for a night halt.

Next morning , we headed to the lake.

Please remember, you are not allowed to pitch tents close to the lake, as per orders of the forest department.

We clicked pictures at the lake and were ready to undertake our return journey. We winded up our tents and collected all the leftover for disposing.

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