Travel Story Sudden trip to Kasol in winters and Kasol to Shimla

Saurabh Soni · « **on:** July 08, 2015, 04:20:54 PM »

Small log about our sudden unplanned journey to Kasol and Shimla in Himalayas on a small car hatchback Chevrolet Beat in winters . We went on this trip to Kasol and Shimla in late winters in February 2015.

Prolog:

It was a last weekend of February, winters were still harsh even in Gurgaon, I came back from my office and I found few of my friends already there at my place. We were enjoying the time together but it was quite a while now when I went out on a road trip.
Days were getting boring and thus suddenly two of us decided to go to some place. It was a Wednesday night and no body applied for leave, we asked other 3 present at the place, 2 agreed after thinking and once decided to stay back. I confess it was difficult to start that unplanned journey bunking the office for two days but we started, the only name came to our mind was Kasol. Yes, Kasol again and it would be third time within 6 months we would be going to Kasol and this time we went on this journey to Parvati Valley on my very own Chevy Beat.
If you have not read our other two experiences from Kasol or our experiences from our Kasol Diaries, read those also:

1.) Gotripperz' bike trip to Magic Valley Kasol in Parvati Valley in October '14

2.) Back to Kasol and Magic valley again and a trek to Rasol

To begin with, I am sharing some of the teasers from the trip:

Details and the route we took, as I was the only driver it took us long to reach there, generally it takes around 11-12 hours to reach

Route Map from Gurgaon to Kasol

Elevation/speed details, as the elevation increased, the speed decreased

Time and speed details

Keep scrolling down for more after disqus comments

ankitjuneja1 · « **Reply #1 on:** July 13, 2015, 09:45:56 AM »

Great start bhai... But Kasol and Simla? Yeh kaisa route hai? How did you do it? You need to get to different route altogether to go from Kasol to Shimla.

ishanmalhotra · « **Reply #2 on:** July 18, 2015, 05:37:59 PM »

Superb yaar, another great road trip to Kasol and that too on a hatchback and that too in winters... and that too including road trip to Shimla from Kasol... great going bro

Saurabh Soni · « **Reply #3 on:** August 01, 2015, 11:57:30 PM »

I will be posting more, as always thanks Ankit and Ishan.

Saurabh Soni · « **Reply #4 on:** August 19, 2015, 02:41:09 AM »

Yes Ankit the route is different, but it is way better than the usual route, road is very smooth till Shimla when you divert from the main usual route till Bilaspur.

Saurabh Soni · « **Reply #5 on:** August 20, 2015, 01:06:38 AM »

Day 0 or THE NIGHT With a bold decision to suddenly go out on a road trip, we 4 were in my Car and strangely for the first 15-20 mins were very quite. We all were in a reflecting mode, we took a decision of going out without informing anyone and were thinking about what would happen when we come back but after we crossed Toll Plaza of Gurgaon, suddenly two of us screamed ##$$%# and I pushed the accelerator and zoom we were on another trip to Kasol. Within no time we crossed empty Delhi roads and reached Murthal Sukhdev Dhaba, our first Halt. Got ourselves freshen up a bit and had a lite dinner, and again we were on road. NH1 is now very improved highway than it used to be and it was a very comfortable drive. We bypassed Panipat, Karnal, Kurukshetra etc and were on our way to Manali listening to good Music. It was a bit foggy night but that was not too much to create problems for driving.

We bypassed Chandigarh and went on to leave behind Roopnagar and then there came those beautiful roads of Punjab. We couldn't see the beauty of those roads because of the darkness of night but we could feel those smooth roads and we saw those roads in our last trip, when we passed through same roads on Bikes.

But the roads are good only until Plains of Punjab and the time you see first sight of Mountains and Himachal Pradesh, the roads become horrible. I needed to be very careful while driving a low Ground Clearance Hatchback with 4 people on board. But slowly and gradually we started climbing and we were in the Mountains.

Saurabh Soni · « **Reply #6 on:** August 20, 2015, 02:05:27 AM »

Day 1: We were in the mountains, roads were not good, we were driving very slowly to ditch each and every pot hole on the road and somewhere in Bilaspur, I started feeling tired. We took a long halt, I brought my office laptop with me and had to do a little bit of office work. Along with this had a nice breakfast with a cup of hot tea. I started a hot spot and with a good 3G connectivity, I completed my office work, marked leave and kept my mailbox on Out of office for the remaining days of the week.

After a break of around 1-1:30 hours, we again started on the same bad road. The roads are very bad till Sundergarh (we call it Sunderland, because last time on our bike trip we took a night halt in a worst guest house till of my life). After a tough drive we went pass Sundergarh and then came Mandi and roads conditions started to become good.

We reached Pandoh Dam and took a halt and saw that Dam in action and started again to reach a tunnel, which is 5 km long and passed it.

I started to feel very tired around afternoon because of continuous driving and I was the only one driving but I kept continuing. In between I started to feel dizzy on occasions but I kept driving on our long route because we had to reach Kasol on that day itself. We reached Bhuntar around evening 4-5 pm and then a long journey of 30-40 odd kms started from Bhuntar to Kasol through worst road conditions on my Beat. It started raining, roads are very narrow and what we witnessed was completely destroyed roads, the villages like Jari etc were also not in very good shape due to heavy snow fall that occurs during winters in the region. At the same time I started feeling too sleepy but it was not a time to stop other wise there was a fear of getting stuck due to rainfall. On one two occasions there was no road at all and it was just mud and slush.
We were counting each and every km and I started feeling insomnia with double things coming up in my mind due to sleep deprivation and tiredness. But at last we saw a milestone, Kasol 0 kms and Manikaran 5 kms and then we reached the place finally. And when we entered Kasol, it was completely a different place than what it was in October before winters. The same hotel which was not available even for 2000 a night was available in just Rs 300. Main Market was completely closed and renovation work was going on in most of the shops. The only place which didn't changed was Namaste Cafe, it was still under renovation before winters and the shape was same after winters.

Hotel owner asked a question with cunning smile on his face, " Sir yahan aaye kaise aur pahuche kaise? road to hai hi nahi!", and with this question we ended our day with our energy drained out to the core.