The turnoff to the Darcha Padum road. You have to keep a keen eye out for it, because you will have just passed a traffic choke point at Jispa bridge and will be in the mood to speed up
Bawa is all set! Are you coming or not?
This is going to be one awesome road once completed
This powerful river has cut itself a deep gorge in these igneous rocks. A lot of the Himalayas are sedimentary rocks - basically dried mud - but you have pockets of hard rocks here and there, and you get spectacular canyons
What water! What beauty!
Where every prospect pleases
A lot of locals come to pray here
They had come in this SUV
The nice tarmac road ends here BTW
Care to ride on these rocks?
Nah...I am kidding...this is a river bed, and there is a bridge over it.
This is the road
Miles and miles of this road. More of a 'path' than a road.
We are approaching the big boys. You don't want to be flippant around these mountains
WE HAVE DONE IT!!
WE HAVE REACHED SHINGO LA...or Shinku La...
What a ride it was! Oof
Veni Vidi Vici
It's simply amazing
There is a high altitude lake at the pass.
And no marks of civilisation apart from the prayer flags
My ProTrek shows the height as 4850 meters, but the claimed height is 5064 meters. I am not in the least saying that my little watch is more accurate than the BRO reading. Either way, it is very high indeed
We build a cairn in tribute to the god of the pass, and promise to return some day
And now its time to go back. Much harder to go down than come up on these gravel roads
Bawa is in love! What roads!
The bad roads are great, but great roads are great too. You can look around and enjoy the scenery instead of just grimly trying to stay alive
I was so sad to get off this road and get back on the Manali Leh highway!