It’s not every day that one gets to experience the exquisite valleys of the Himalayas. So when I and my friends were in Manali last October, we ensured that we cover at least Lahaul and Spiti on our trip. We managed to book an affordable Delhi taxi service from Savaari which took us to Manali. We made the hill town as our base for our tours and covered Lahaul first.

While it was definitely an experience of a lifetime, crossing the deadly passes and exploring the ancient monasteries, I found Spiti Valley to be more exciting and laden with unique adventures. This travelogue is about one such trip to the bountiful Pin Valley and its adjoining national park.

What I learned about Pin Valley National Park

The valley was formed by the Pin River that runs through its length and merges with the Spiti River. The constant water flow carrying rich soil and essential minerals gave rise to dense foliage and led a lot of wild animals to migrate to this region for food and shelter. The locals call it the ‘home of the grey ghost’ or the ‘ghost cat’. It is nothing spooky but rather the rare and endangered snow leopard that treads the forests in winter. One can rarely see them and since they blend with the fog and snow, they look rather ghostly. Other than this wild cat, the national park is also home to other Himalayan species which one would never find anywhere else in the country, like the Siberian Ibex, Himalayan snowcock, bearded vulture, or the arctic ravens. I bet many of us have never even heard some of these names! Also, the forests of the Pin Valley are also a great source of many medicinal plants and herbs that our civilisation has been using since centuries. Indeed, this place sounded like a treasure trove of nature’s most extraordinary things, and I couldn’t wait to experience it first-hand.

Reaching the valley zone

To reach Pin Valley, we had to take the route towards Kaza and then towards Dhankar. Since the national park was only 40 Km from the Tibet border, we needed to get an Inner Line Permit. We stopped at the sub-divisional magistrate’s office in Kaza for the same. This took us quite a while and I figured we could have done it prior to our travel.

Next, we came to a diversion at the Attargo Bridge. This was a significant point of interest, both historically and geographically. We stopped at the point where the wild but magnificent Pin River merges with the Spiti River. At another 15-16 Km on the road, we reached Gulling, the biggest town in the Pin Valley. This is where the road and the drive got real thrilling. From Gulling to Mudh, which is the last village in the Pin Valley, the roads were untarred and made of rubble and went up to an elevation of 20,000 feet! Few of my friends were initially affected by altitude sickness but soon got over it. And once we started focusing on the magnificent views on both sides, we forgot about the altitude.

The national park

While most parts of this Himalayan valley is dry and devoid of greenery with very scarce population, there were also a handful of settlements in pockets around the flourishing Pin Valley. This is perhaps the lushest part of Spiti with a rich ecosystem of flora and fauna. It seemed as if a separate region from other landscape has been cut and pasted within Spiti. And we were perhaps right on time when the weather was at its best. We started our trek from Mudh and through the rocky roads. The most prominent feature of this national park was that it wasn’t like any other sanctuary or wildlife reserve I have visited. There are no thick clusters of tall trees or a canopy of foliage. This was vast and open, under the endless sky, with tufts of vegetation here and there. There were, of course, a bunch of trees in patches but otherwise, it is was like a huge field, where you might encounter any wild animal without prior indication. But the predators were further up north, where they could camouflage in the snow or the huge mountain boulders.

The Pin Valley National park is bordered by the Great Himalayan National Park on one side and the RupiBhabha Sanctuary on the other. We had the options of trekking or driving to and through the park and we chose to drive halfway down and trek to the park and tour it on foot. It was quite a climb either ways but it seemed worth every breath.

The sunny and windy weather, contrasting views of greenery and the snow-capped mountains made for a view to die for. And the silence, although deafening, just complemented the views, making it a magical setting.

Pro Tips:

• For a good start to the tour, book a reliable cab from Delhi to Manali.
• If you are camping inside the park, you will need prior permission from the Forest Department for designated areas.
• You can opt for accommodation in the village or at monasteries in the Pin Valley.