Leh had it´s first snow yesterday , lasting a few hours . Higher up the Khardung La was blocked – and today the Manali-Leh Highway is shown as closed. IANS talks of heavy snowfall over the Lachulung La & Tanglang La. Daytime temperatures still around + 10 , night time -10.

Sources : Tribune , leh.nic.in

The Border Roads Organisation today said that the Rothang and Baralacha La were expected to be impassable from snow soon , and that they will not try to keep the Manali-Leh Highway open after October 31st : BRO “would not be in a position to carry out snow clearance operation for evacuation in case of any accident or physical casualty.”

Source : Tribune

Manali-Kaza , September 19th © Eva Forss

Roshni tweets from a single day cannonball run between Leh and Manali  on the 19th :

continuous snowfall that threatened to close all the passes, falling rocks etc

Twitter with it´s 142 character limit forces you to condense your language , the vikings would have liked it.

Swedish blogger Eva hit the Kaza-Manali road on the  19 th :

The beauty of all that snow …finally we realised all the work involved in removing all the snow , and the time needed for it . In several places avalanches had hit the road , towering high as houses..

Eva´s  blog   , with more photos , you´ll find at  Resedagboken (you can imagine my surprise finding someting in my mother tongue )

UPDATE: Posters on IndiaMike describe going over virtually snowfree Rothang & Kuzum La on the 26th and 30th.

“view from Dharma guesthouse” from twitpic (looks more like lower end of Vashisht).
Weather report says mostly cloudy (doh ! ) , possible rain and thunderstorms tonight.

UPDATE : Better weather , same crossed the Rothang and is now sunning in Lahaul.
Swedish blogger crossed the Kunzum & Rothang La on the 19th.

The sun has reappeared in Himachal after four days of continous rain and snowfall and ensuimg landslides and snowlocked passes. BRO has just announced that also the Baralacha La has been cleared for light vehicles , and should be open for trucks and buses soon. No word on the Kunzum La yet.

UPDATE, MONDAY : Baralacha La finally cleared from three feet of snow.

Baralacha La September 9th – photo by vikramkyy , see his other photos on IndiaMike here

The Manali-Leh Highway has been cut by renewed snowfalls according to the Tribune today which quotes BRO: Baralacha La has received more than forty centimers of snow , while the Rothang La received around twenty. Traffic is at a standstill at Bharatpur and Koksar ,and at Gulaba which have heavy rains.  There is also snow over the Kunzum La on the  Manali-Kaza route to Spiti.

Manali-Leh , northward traffic has been stopped at Darcha.

Leh-Manali , southward traffic has been stopped at Sarchu.

Manali-Kaza traffic has been stopped at Gramphu.

Kaza-Manali traffic has been stopped at Losar.

UPDATE, THURSDAY : IANS quotes police source saying that 140 people  , among them 22 foreigners , has been rescued around Sarchu , and that the road has been cleared again , including the Baralacha La. Shimla received the seasons heaviest rain , 59 mms , on Thursday.

In a bid to eliminate the gridlocks to the Rothang La closes for tourist traffic on Tuesdays .. sort of .

“No tourist vehicle will  be allowed beyond Kothi on every Tuesday between 9 am to 6 pm ” – but HRTC buses will continue to roll.

What this amounts to is a lock out of the day trips crowd – the shared jeeps bound for Leh  will have already already have passed the Rothang in the early morning hours , and the returnees will arrive at Manali in the evening.When I crossed last time it took sx and a half hours (!)  up to the Rothang . The frustrations of the Lahaulis has problably not been the main reason , but the mounting critique of the slow pace in double laning the road.

This will create  a slot for buses ( interesting to see if the private buses will slip by )  and BRO transports only.

Heavy snows in the rest of Himachal has turned in to snow over the Rothang La and Lahaul , making the road impassable.

Tribune today talks of   ”hundreds “of vehicles stranded on both sides of the Rothang , and at Baralacha La on Thursday. BRO has set upp barriers in four places : Marhi ( before the Rothang at around 3300) , Koksar ( at the northern base of the Rothang , around 3100) , Darcha ( 3360 , the crossroads for the routes to Leh & Padum ) and  Sarchu ( “The Vomit Hilton”,  at 4253 ) .

HRTC  also confirmed that all buses and taxis had to turn back at Marhi today.

The route to Spiti from Manali has also been taken out by  heavy snowfall  over the Kunzum La pass.

UPDATE : By Friday afternoon Manali-Leh road was open again for light traffic , and the Kunzum  La was cleared again according to the Deputy Commissioner in Keylong. 282 travellers , including sixty foreigners , was evaced from Baralacha La on Thursday.

UPDATE , SATURDAY : Baralacha La cleared, forty vehicles moving towards Keylong from Bharatpur.

From a tweet : landslide at Marhi takes out the Manali-Leh road for the better part of the day.

Coming in to the police check post/tent just before Pang ( late evening , should have been in Leh now … never make plans on the Manali-Leh highway ) I become aware of some commotion behind me : C. is not checking in , hypoxia and dizziness finally caught up with her on the short stretch between the bus and the check post , and her legs gave out . Still conscious though.

I have been keeping tabs on her for a while now , ever since the mounting headaches. In the last delay ,  the road washed away  there was not only headaches , and I could see her stress as she is unable to recognise what is happening to her : something else than headaches or nausea , but still very apparent , the vague term dizziness commonly used doesn´t really prepare you  for the experience.  I´m not really in sync with what´s happening , lulled by the shouldnt´s factors : can´t go that bad , not with two nights at 3100 , and she did take Diamox when suggested , before symtoms .

I come in with her to the Army first aid post in Pang , altitude 4500 , with an oxygen saturation of 82 % … something I know will result in some baffled reactions from my work mates. C. has greyish lips , cold white hands and is shivering . The medic is unfrazzled , starts first an i.v. line … that is connected to the tent stove  , feeding it with kerosene , then fires up the oxygen generator .

“77 % is okay ,we  can work with that. The ones under 70 % are a real problem”

This is my first contact with with Hinglish medicalese , it makes me think of the the Indian media prosa , where buses hurtling in to rivers are described as “mishaps”.

He´s obviously very good at what he´s doing though , going thru the progression of symtoms , checking the dosages of Diamox , and managing her friend and the army spectators.

He is ( so am I ) mildly baffled with how well acclimatized her friend is : 86 % , slightly below the level of the Army personel that have been there for weeks. Striking example of the three nights  “rule” : most people have a threshold somewhere between the second and third night , after which  a acid balance shift and a different way of regulating breathing allows you to breathe a lot more.

Late evening I dive in to my sleeping bag . I have been doing well managed without problems ( two nights at 3000+ , low dosage Diamox  started in Keylong , shifted to standard dosage at Darcha ) climbing on top of the bus etc. , but I definitely feel the the sat drop as I shift in to horizontal position.

Later I leave the tent and step out in to the velvet night : shock black sky , unreal sharp stars , and the Milky Way a glistening shroud cast across the sky. The mountains fill the lower third of the sky , and below that the white parachute tents illuminated  from within : yes , this is what I came for.

As we move out from Pang , the rest of the people on the bus come in to focus. There are differences , partly from where they are coming from : a Delhiite couple with two weeks in Spiti unsurprisingly come out very well . The most striking thing is that within an hour from setting out  , something like half of the passengers are slumped in their seats , and remain like that for most of the day , oblivious of of most of what transpires : their first  meeting with yaks and pashmina goats , the nomad camps and their first meeting with classical Tibetan style architecture : the monasteries in Thikse and Shey.