How much trouble would a person go through to go paragliding? The answer all depends on the person’s mood, but firstly, it depends upon their love for the sport/activity of paragliding. I have done paragliding before, but never have I gone through such a chaotic journey. The journey I am referring to is the Manali to Rohtang highway. My plan was to leave Manali early morning and beat the tourist traffic, which I have heard dreaded tales about. The reason I wanted to go Paragliding at Rohtang is quite simply because it is the best place to do the sport in the country. You start at 13,000 feet and glide through the air spending countless minutes soaring and gliding like an eagle. It is quite simply the most beautiful experience ever. The drive to Manali is beautiful and the roads take you through some very beautiful landscapes. It’s only once you pass Mandi that it becomes very enjoyable.
However, Manali was more crowded than ever when we arrived. We could not believe the amount of traffic there was in the city itself. The following day was just not going to be in our favour, as we knew we would be in for a serious rush to the top of the pass. What made things even worse was that we started late the next morning because we woke up late. It must have been around 9 in the morning when we left our hotel. And as soon as we reached the main road towards Rohtang we were greeted by traffic. Our luck was just getting worse. The climb up to Rohtang is very scenic and beautiful, but when you are driving you need to pay attention to the roads because they are steep and very narrow, and not to mention you will find a lot of incompetent drivers on this road who show a total disregard for the roads, others and the place itself.
After 2 hours we finally reached the first checkpoint from where you can look up and see the tip of the pass and we could also see many other paragliding enthusiasts who had beaten us up there. What bothered us the most was that even by 12p.m. there were more cars coming down than going up, so we wondered why that was the case. We asked a few locals but they said it was nothing at all and that some people just go up to touch the snow and come back down. Well it seemed reasonably valid and so we continued without worry. As you cross the first check-post, the tree line ends and you are welcomed to a barren land of nothingness. There were two things – badly paved roads and traffic. The traffic became worse and worse at every bend until we saw that up on the mountain there was a never ending line of cars that zigzagged all the way to the bottom of the mountain. We could not believe our eyes, it was the most haunting sight we had ever seen. At one point we were stuck for 1 hour without even moving an inch, but it was too late to turn back as we more than half way to the top. The majestic views of the mountains were our savior and the time spent waiting on the road didn’t turn out to be too bad.
Time rolled on and it must have taken us about 3 more hours just to get to the very top from where we wanted to start our descent on para-sails. This is when we saw the main reason for the clogged up roads. The roads had recently been destroyed in a land slide and there was just one lane of slush and mud from which both sides of traffic had to pass. This was a complete disaster and there was no one there to properly manage the traffic. It was the reality of our nightmare. Finally after 7 hours we managed to reach the top and set up for our phenomenal experience of paragliding all the way down. Was it worth it you may ask me? And I will reply yes! Every damn minute was worth it. But I will next time plan to leave Manali by 4am, on the dot, so I can get passed the traffic.
Prashant Sharma
Manali
Prashant Sharma
Manali