Road conditions - latest reports HP/Ladakh

himadventures

Baralacha la, Kunzum La and Rohtang were closed and it is not safe to travel over these passes anymore. Any time- a little disturbance in weather may result in getting trapped.

All these passes have tragic history but still tourist keep on taking chances.

anurag1980

when are the rods expected to open. I am planning to go in 1 st week june.

sanjaykumar9

hi.. even I am planning to go that side in 1st week of June, and need info on the route opening date...

anurag1980

i got a mail from ladhakh district website. may roads will open and june to aug is good time to bike.

grizzlyofalaska

What is the best time hang out in Manali this summer? I want cheap accomodation away from local tourists.

What will be the weather like in may and june?

sanjaykumar9

June won't be a good time to travel considering it is the "Bengali season" and all places will be jam packed. Last year i was in Kullu in June and people were have a tough time finding cheap & good accommodation in Manali.

Weather will be very pleasant in May/June. I find September/October to be a good time travel in Himalayas. You get less tourists, clearer view after the monsoon is over, but more cooler.

pvharikrishnan

Hi
Generally Srinagar-Leh and Leh-Manali road opens mid May. Slight variations are expected. 2007 i travelled this whole stretch [Srinagar-Leh and Leh - Manali by road] with my family.

Last year the road opened by 13 of May. I started from Srinagar on may 26 stayed at Kargil on that day night and reached Leh by 27 evening. By that time Leh - Manali road too was opened. On June 1st i started from Leh to manali and stayed at Sarchu on that night and reached manali on June 2nd evening.
You can see some of the photos here

So if you go by June first week no problem.

Harikrishnan

vistet

Srinagar-Leh is already open, and three crews are working on the Manali-Leh section with the goal of opening by the end of this month.

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puchoo

I am continuously asked about tips/information on driving to Shimla by friends and acquaintances. I assumed hence that this information might be useful in general as well and hence decided to pen down some stuff.

TIME: If you are driving to Shimla for the first time then give yourself about 10 hours. Roughly broken up into 8 hours driving and about 2 hours of stops. When u leave Delhi can play a big role in how much time you take. I just went up recently and left at 4:30 in the morning and reached Shimla at 10:30…astraight 6 hours (a record even by my standards) with a half an hour stop for breakfast and another half an hour for tea. But getting out of Delhi can be a very time consuming process in itself. A little later and expect to find yourself battling trucks at Azadpur and more often than not about 20 minutes or so to clear that particular traffic light.

ROAD: The over all road condition is pretty good. I break it into 3 Segments. Primarily Delhi to Ambala , Ambala to Kalka and Kalka to Shimla. After u have left behind the normal bumps and potholes of Delhi roads u can sit back and cruise. Its an excellent road sometime 2 laned sometimes 4 all the way to Ambala.

The only bad section used to be the Ambala - Chandigarh patch which about 45 Km's in length is a single carriage way and it can take upto 60 minutes to clear that.

Unfortunately there is a lot of ongoing construction by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) resulting in Panipat being a mess (not an issue if you hit it before 7 AM) and then there is the Ambala - Chandigarh stretch as mentioned before. Ongoing efforts to improve the road surface and width result in slow driving and Zirakpur (where this patch ends) is another mess with a pivotal flyover being built the length of the main road..

TRAFFIC: This of curse depends on when u leave. Ideally leave early and you will avoid messes at Sonipat and Panipat , 2 of th most crowded places and Ambala to Kalka depends on a little luck as well. From Kalka to Shimla there is not too much traffic. Kalka and Parwanoo will be crowded, then Solan and that’s about it.

STOPS: More than enough choices on the way. What i personally do is to stop at a Dhaba called ’’Jhilmil’’ at Karnal, most amazing lassi and paneer ka parathan….then no stops still about Dharampur, which is roughly an hour from Kalka. But if u can’t wait that long then like i said there are enough choices. Karnal in itself boasts of 3-4 popular and regular stops such as Haveli, Karnal Lake Complex but if u can stop at Jhilmil, its been around for donkey's ear's and has a bit of a cult following, and is very economical as well.

TOLL : While driving to Shimla u have 3 toll stops One at Karnal (50) One near Ambala (11) and one at Kalka (30), on the way back the same tolls apply except the one for entering Himachal (30)

FINANCES: I will have to make certain assumptions here i.e that one would travel otherwise in a train (shatabdi AC chaircar) , Taxi, or A deluxe Bus.

As far as one person driving up goes its not economical. But the minute 2 or more are involved its cheaper to drive up.1000-1200 Rs for fuel, 200 for stops, 90 for tolls = 1300.

1300= total cost one way (the more the number of persons coming the lower the cost per head)

Train : 450 INR for one AC Chaircar ticket to Kalka, then either a Taxi which is 1500-1800 or a bus which can be anything between 100-250. So total cost one way will be roughly around 600 per head. One can always take the toy train up as well which would be about 5 hours and be on an average about 200 INR.

Taxi from Delhi : Close to about 2500.

Plane roughly 6000 one way

Bus: The Volvo which the Himachal government runs costs 630 per ticket per person.


The best part of course is getting there at your own pace.

Another point i would mention is that the timings suggested for departure from Delhi are for summer. In the winter time one can leave later and still not find much traffic on the roads, but there is always the possibility of fog and if you do encounter it ,then its down to 15Kmph and can last as far as Panipat.

Delhi - Sonipat - Panipat -Karnal - Ambala - Zirakpur - Kalka/Parwanoo - Dharampur-Solan-Kandaghat - Shimla.

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Sidharth

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jyotirmoy

Excellent post.
I love the parathas served at Jhilmil with a dollop of fresh local butter on it.

puchoo

The white one.....oh lovely...!! and what i like is that if you have the time it can be a nice day trip from Delhi...and if the weather is anything like this then simply awesome.

jyotirmoy

Yeah the white one.... is it available in Delhi? I haven't seen this at the stores I normally go.
Yes on a day like this a drive to Shimla is awsome indeed.

shashank.aggarwal

Yes Dada it is very commonly available in Delhi...and not in stores

but local dairies, from where you get fresh paneer, and all..

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Random Reviews

shashank.aggarwal

we started for Shimla at 8:30 Pm. couple of random breaks, one dinner break and I was there at 3:30 AM

puchoo

7 Hours including stops....thats peppy!