A road carved through mountains

Carved through the Himalaya mountain range in 1987 and opened to foreign
travellers in 1989, the 500km highway between the towns of Manali and Leh in
northwest India has become a premier mountain challenge for intrepid cyclists,
presenting one of the highest and most starkly beautiful rides in the world.
Blanketed by snow for most of the year, the road is accessible for just three or
four months – around June to September – when makeshift villages, such as the
prayer flag-strung Marhi, 50km north of Manali, materialise

The monsoonal greenery of the Himachal Pradesh foothills ends at Rohtang La,
from where the highway enters the barren Chandra Valley. Cut into steep and, at
times, unstable slopes, the highway is in constant flux. It is prone to
landslides, and sections of the road are destroyed each year by the brutal
winter conditions.

Cycling from Manali to Leh involves climbs totalling around 8,000m – almost the
equivalent of scaling Mount Everest from sea level – and atop barren Baralacha
La the road officially crosses the Himalayan range. The ascent to this pass from
the village of Patseo is long but gradual, climbing 1,200m in 32km. At almost
4,900m above sea level, every gain is hard earned with the effort of pedalling
and even breathing difficult and painful. Here a cyclist rests above a small
lake near the crest of the pass.