Manali to Leh by road: five passes and thin air
Flying into Leh at 3,500 metres drops you straight into oxygen deprivation with no transition. Taking the highway from Manali over two days forces your body to earn the altitude one mountain pass at a time. It is 480 kilometres of broken tarmac, glacial runoff trenches, and scree slopes carved by the Border Roads Organisation into the spine of the Pir Panjal and Zanskar ranges.
We left Old Manali at 4:30am in a shared Mahindra Scorpio with five passengers, four jerrycans of diesel strapped to the roof rack, and two spare tyres. By midday, the lush cedar forests of the Kullu valley had vanished entirely, replaced by the wind-scoured mineral desert of Lahaul.
The anatomy of the crossing
The Manali–Leh highway is only open from late May to mid-October. The rest of the year, winter dumps three metres of snow across the high cols, cutting Ladakh off from overland supply. The route crosses five major passes in ascending altitude:
- Rohtang / Atal Tunnel (3,120m): The modern tunnel bypasses the notorious Rohtang mud traps, shaving four hours off the lower valley approach.
- Baralacha La (4,890m): A wild, desolate pass connecting Lahaul to Ladakh, flanked by Suraj Tal lake and ancient moraines.
- Nakee La (4,740m) & Lachung La (5,060m): Approached via the Gata Loops—21 hairpin turns climbing 500 metres in seven kilometres.
- Tanglang La (5,328m): The second-highest motorable pass on the highway, where ambient air pressure is roughly half that of sea level.
At 4,800 metres, your blood oxygen saturation drops below 80%. Every exertion—hoisting a rucksack, changing a punctured tyre—feels like running underwater in heavy boots.
Surviving the night in Sarchu
Most two-day overland transits stop overnight at Sarchu (4,290m) or Jispa (3,200m). Stopping at Jispa is medically sensible; stopping at Sarchu is an exercise in endurance. Sarchu is a seasonal tent settlement pitched on a windswept plateau between two mountain walls.
By 8:00pm, the temperature inside the canvas tents drops to -4°C. The kerosene stoves provide twenty minutes of heat before filling the room with soot, forcing you to choose between freezing air or carbon monoxide. Sleep comes in fragmented twenty-minute bursts, punctuated by Cheyne-Stokes breathing—the body's instinctive hyperventilation cycle in hypoxic conditions.
The More Plains and the descent into Ladakh
Past Pang, the highway spills onto the More Plains: a surreal, 40-kilometre stretch of dead-flat plateau sitting at 4,600 metres. Here, Changpa nomads graze pashmina goats against a backdrop of ochre mountains that look like folded velvet.
Climbing the final switchbacks of Tanglang La, the engine was gasping for oxygen in second gear. Reaching the prayer-flag-strewn summit at 5,328 metres, you look north toward the Indus valley. The descent through Upshi into Leh brings willow trees, whitewashed stupas, and thick, sweet mountain air that feels like a physical luxury after twenty hours in the high cold.
Planning an overland trip to Ladakh or need logistics advice on altitude acclimatisation? Send me a message.