After two nights of eating dinner in all the outerwear that we brought, the water at the Solang Ski Resort shut off. There was no cold water or hot water. We were each given buckets of water to use. Timbo’s was hot, mine was lukewarm. Also, the electricity had been going off and on.
Pluses: Great views, good access, good service, excellent food
Minuses: minimal heating, electricity and water often not working. Approach from road consists of post holing through the snow about 150 m. Not fun with 40 kg of gear. Roadside parking nearly impossible if you don’t arrive by 830am.
Shivering while lapping the tepid water onto myself and waiting for the power to go out, I decided that I wanted to leave. Further, various weather forecasts indicated rain coming for the next two days. The thought of hunkering down in our sleeping bags for that time was enough make us check out, a lengthy affair that required trying several different payment services and multiple calls to my credit card issuer. The nuclear option was to visit the ATM in Palchan. Although it was only a few km away, we knew that because of the traffic it would take several hours. Luckily Sky One is a chain and was able to email a link for a payment service that worked with US credit cards.
Knowing that we would never return to Sky One, we decided to get some snow sampling done the next morning then brave the traffic jam back to Manali.
I have to point out that our stay at the Solang Ski Resort had some positives points too. The service was excellent and the food was some of the best we’ve had, though it may have been accentuated by our need to touch anything warm. The views and access to the mountains, at least by Manali standards, were good.
After discussing for a bit, we wound up sampling the area just below the “ski resort” next to the hotel.
After finishing sampling, we hopped back in the and prepared for a traffic jam that would make even the most hardened Los Angelino scream obscenities. We showed up and found the Jypsy parked in, with a sub compact bearing a “Durga Fruits” sticker stuffed against the front bumper. Guess it was time to start waiting.
After about 30 min, Durga Fruits showed up and moved his tiny vehicle forward enough for us to inch out. We were able to pull out and get in the downhill line of cars, but the lineup was moving incredibly slowly. It’s 11 km from Solang to Manali and about 500 vertical m downhill. It took at least three hours to get to Vashist, which is just before Manali. There, traffic completely stopped for over an hour because of two fresh landslides on the east side of the Beas River. Considering all the boulders and even shacks perched in landslide paths that we had driven by previously, we figured this must be serious to actually close the road. And sure enough, when the road reopened, we found boulders larger than vehicles that I imagine will have to be blown up in place because they are too heavy to move with construction equipment.
After suffering through the traffic jam, we arrived at our new home for the next 5 days, the Manali Inn. This place is a relatively gigantic modern hotel with central heating, generators, and hot showers. We were so relieved that we hit the Kapital Lounge, the club on the the top floor of the hotel. The Kingfisher beer is unfortunately awful and tastes like Old English.
Since Sat, we’ve been hanging out here and waiting out the rain. Weather looks better for Tue and Wed, then back to Bhuntar on Thursday. The plan is to squeeze in one more ascent with sampling before leaving.