This is the eighth post of the Manali Leh Highway series, in the previous posts of this series you have seen Himalayan Shepherds, Life of Changpa Tribe, Himalayan Rickshaw Run, Lahaul Valley, Maure Plains and Tanglang La landscapes and learned about this colorful land. Today in this series, we will read about the third mountain pass of Manali-Leh Highway named Naki La.
Naki La is a high altitude mountain pass located in the Union Territory of India named Ladakh. This mountain pass connects Himachal Pradesh to Ladakh and Kashmir. This pass is the third of the five located on the famous Manali-Leh highway. If a tourist goes to Leh from Manali or comes to Manali from Leh, in both the conditions this pass will be third only. By the way, Naki La is not such a famous pass and the reason for this is Lachungla Pass, because the height of Naki La is less than 5000 meters, so it could not make its place among tourists as strongly as Lachungla Pass whose height is 5059 meters.
Gata Loops : The Challenge of 21 hairpin bands
Naki La's biggest challenge is Gata Loops, now Gata Loops is an adventure that hardly anyone likes, broken road, dusty road, trucks and trucks and 21 hairpin bands that every vehicle has to climb. Life is lost. Gata Loops starts at an altitude of 4201 meters and ends at an altitude of 4667 meters, the distance of this segment is only 14 km. Many cyclists accept this challenge and some cross this challenge by sitting on the seat and some by walking, although I crossed it by sitting on the seat.
Naki La is such a dry and dry mountain that if the tourists stay for a long time then their head starts hurting. The altitude here and the cold air make this pass more difficult for the tourists. I remember when I had reached here by bicycle, my head started hurting only after stopping for about 10 minutes. Due to the high altitude, 7 out of 10 people here start showing symptoms of acute mountain sickness very quickly.
This is the open shrine which made for truck driver
Ghost story of Gata loops
Apart from the above adventure, Naki La is also famous for a ghost story. It is believed that once upon a time a truck driver died here due to thirst. To tell in detail, once a truck broke down in which two people were there, one was the driver and the other was the helper. When the drinking water ran out at night, the driver asked the helper to go and bring water. In the dark of night, the helper went to find water and by the time the helper came back with water, the driver had died of thirst.
Now if many drivers believe, then they still see the soul of the driver on the road and ask him for water. It has also been heard that when such an incident happened with other drivers during the night, many trucks fell into the ditch due to fear. To prevent frequent accidents, a temple has been built at that place, there is also a human skull in the temple, it is said that this skull belongs to the same driver. Now people started offering water bottles for the peace of the driver's soul at the place where the ghost of the truck driver is seen. So now there is a pile of plastic bottles at that place. Now it is believed that there have been no accidents since the water bottle was offered but the driver is still visible to some people. Personally I have crossed Nakki La many times but I have never seen the ghost of the driver. But in the affair of the ghost, a pile of plastic bottles has been put on the Gata Loops, which are now blown away by the wind.
Well let's move from the ghost story to the real world. If you are lucky then you can also see blue sheep here. I heard from many people that we saw Blue Sheep at Naki La...but I never got to see one. And luckily in 2023 I was able to see the Blue Sheep. It was a herd consisting of about 4-6 blue sheep. She was eating grass and crossing the river and running on the snow.
So that was the story of the eighth post in this series, in which you have seen Naki La and its surrounding landscapes, read about Gata Loops and its ghost, it was a great coincidence to see the Blue Sheep and I want to capture this lovely creature in photos. Captured. I hope you have liked this post.
Disclaimer: All photos are clicked by me (himalayanwomb), all photos are clicked from canon 1100d, photos are edited in lightroom. This blog has been written in Hindi and translated into English, for which the help of Google translation has been taken. And yes I proudly say this post is AI free.