Posted by Shivam Singh
On 7th August, 2021
Every trip need proper planning and several brainstorming sessions to decide places of stay/places to visit, things to carry, etc.
And when it’s a Roadtrip during Covid times and you have to cross 4 states, things become more complicated.
Spiti Valley Roadtrip was one of my long pending dream, because of its unusual adventurous terrain and less explored places. I decided on this trip last year in mid-May 2020 but couldn’t do it due to lockdown.
After doing a super adventurous Kinnaur Roadtrip in Nov-2020 with 2 of my best friends (Prabal & Sharad), I was craving for more such adventures.
Read full details of Kinnaur Roadtrip here: https://www.tripvaani.com/category/kinnaur-roadtrip/
One day during March-2021, while having a candid conversation with my younger cousin brother from Bangalore: Ishaan (sunny), he disclosed his plan of shifting permanently to Delhi and buying a new SUV (make & model still undecided) in April, from which he wanted to do an off-road trip and asked for suggestions.
May be I was bit selfish, but I was sure at that very moment that we will be going to Spiti Valley 🙂
The only catch, we will be going in his car instead of mine Nexon.
After having multiple discussions thereafter for at least a week, Spiti was finalized 🙂
Due to our plan to stay in tents, we thought of looping more people to make it easier and safer. Two elder cousins were included finally who were in Delhi, Prashant (camping expert) and Peeyush (complimentary to make a group of brothers) 🙂
Dates were decided as one month later in mid April (15th April to be precise). By then sunny had to buy car and we all need to arrange leaves in our offices.
WhatsApp group was created and one day in March end, sunny sent us an image of white Range Rover. All of us jumped in joy as we immediately understood that he purchased it and that will be our vehicle for the trip.
This acted as a motivation, and immediately I started creating a tentative route plan to be followed during the trip.
The word Tentative should always be used in such road-trips, as you will witness many fascinating and unexplored areas that will force you to change you original plan.
Reading several blogs and travel stories, I was finally able to create our route plan as below.
Spiti has two entry points, one via Manali and another via Shimla.
* Via Shimla, it takes an extra 2 days, but is suggested as you will get acclimatize by the time you reach Spiti, due to gradual increase in altitude.
* Manali route is comparatively shorter but you may feel altitude-sickness and shortness of breath due to a sudden increase in altitude.
The best option is to do a round circle: enter via Shimla and exit from Manali. You will be able to cover most of the places this way.
Overnight stay was planned in Narkanda, Tabo, Kaza (2-3 days) and Manali.
Our plan was also a round trip with entry from Shimla and exit via Manali route. But we couldn’t do it as the Kunzum-La pass enroute was closed due to snow. Maximum we reached till Chicham Bridge, from where we returned back via same route (bit boring).
Anyways, soon after the rough version of route, fair version was created.
At this point, we started purchasing and packing required stuffs. Few important items packed are below:
* Heavy and Light Winter Clothes (due to unpredicted weather)
* 2 Tents for camping
* Yoga Mat (as base while sleeping in tent)
* Sleeping Bag (to be used inside tent)
* Folding Chairs (to be used during camping)
* Camping Stove (with butane gas canes)
* Jerkin (foldable water container)
* Camping Lights
* Camphor & Match Boxes (to light fire in woods)
* Axe (kulhadi to cut wood)
* Go-Pro
* Selfie-stick, Gimble
* Power Banks and Mobile Charger
* Air Compressor (to be used in emergency, should be kept always in such areas)
* Puncture Kit
* Jio and BSNL Sim Cards
* Emergency Medicines
* Food Items
* General utensils (to prepare food on stove)
* Sanitizer and Masks
Tip: Always get you car or bike serviced along with Break/Tyre checked before travel to such places.
Now we were just waiting for 15th April to start the trip 🙂
See you in the upcoming blogs where I will take you on this journey. Some major attraction we covered during this trip are:
* World’s Highest Village
* World’s Highest Post Office
* Asia’s Highest Bridge
* World’s Highest Indian Oil Retail Outlet
* Overnight Riverside Camping
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