Spiti Circuit
The grand circle of the trans-Himalaya
A cinematic loop through two of India’s most dramatic mountain valleys — from the apple orchards of Kinnaur to the moonscapes of Spiti and the shimmering shores of Chandratal. Ride high mountain passes, sleep beside glacial lakes, and wake in villages that have kept time for a thousand years.
Travel Modes
- Bike Expedition
- Tempo Traveller Expedition
- 4x4 Expedition
Suggested price, per person
₹24,999
What makes this journey unforgettable
Chitkul & Rakchham
The last inhabited villages before Tibet, wrapped in pine and river song.
Bird Watching in Rakchham
A dawn hour on the Baspa — dippers, redstarts, monal on the slopes and lammergeiers overhead.
Kalpa & Kinnaur Kailash
Sunrise on the sacred peak from apple-orchard balconies.
Nako Lake & Monastery
A high-altitude oasis and a thousand-year-old gompa.
Chandratal
Camp beside the “Lake of the Moon” under a blazing galaxy.
Trace the trail
- Chandigarh
- Narkanda
- Chitkul
- Rakchham
- Kalpa
- Nako
- Chandratal
- Manali
- Chandigarh
The itinerary
- Day1
Chandigarh → Narkanda
Climb out of the plains into apple country. First night among deodar forests with valley views.
- Day2
Narkanda → Chitkul
Follow the Baspa river to the last village on the Indo-Tibetan road. Evening walk through wooden hamlets.
- Day3
Chitkul → Rakchham → Kalpa
Wake early for bird watching along the Baspa at Rakchham — brown dippers working the rapids, water redstarts on the boulders and, if the slopes are generous, a monal breaking cover. A late riverside breakfast, then on to Kalpa facing the Kinnaur Kailash range.
- Day4
Kalpa → Nako
Cross into the arid trans-Himalaya. Nako’s lake, mud-brick lanes and monastery at dusk.
- Day5
Nako → Kaza (via Tabo & Dhankar)
Ancient Tabo monastery and the cliff-perched Dhankar fort-gompa en route to Kaza.
- Day6
Kaza → Key → Kibber → Chandratal
Iconic Key Monastery, high villages, then camp beside Chandratal lake.
- Day7
Chandratal → Manali
Over Kunzum La and Rohtang into the green of Kullu. Celebration dinner in Manali.
- Day8
Manali → Chandigarh
Descend through the Beas valley. Journey ends with new mountains in your memory.
Rakchham
The village of boulders, 3,100 metres up the Baspa
Rakchham sits midway between Sangla and Chitkul, on a shelf of pasture where the Baspa river slows and braids. The name is the village’s own explanation of itself — the valley floor here is strewn with house-sized boulders, carried down in some ancient collapse of the slopes above and never moved since. Children play on them, cattle shelter under them, and the fields are ploughed around them.
This is Snow Wolf’s home valley. Our founders were raised on these terraces, and the families who host you are neighbours, not vendors. What follows is the village as we know it — its birds, its gods, its harvests and its winters.
Birds of the Baspa
The valley sits where three habitats meet — river, conifer forest and alpine rock — which is why the bird list here runs so long. These are the species our guides look for on the dawn watch above the village.
Himalayan Monal
Lophophorus impejanus
The nine-coloured pheasant of the upper birch and rhododendron. Best found just after first light, scratching for roots at the treeline above the village.
Western Tragopan
Tragopan melanocephalus
Jujurana, the “king of birds” and Himachal’s state bird. Rare, shy and confined to dense conifer — a sighting in the Baspa forests is the birder’s prize of the trip.
Bearded Vulture
Gypaetus barbatus
The lammergeier, riding the valley thermals on a near three-metre wingspan, carrying bones aloft to drop on the scree and crack open.
Brown Dipper
Cinclus pallasii
A stout river bird that walks straight into the Baspa’s white water and forages along the bed. Watch the mid-stream boulders at dawn.
White-capped Redstart
Phoenicurus leucocephalus
Constant company along the river — a flash of chestnut and black bobbing from rock to rock, its whistle cutting through the water noise.
Wallcreeper
Tichodroma muraria
A grey ghost with crimson wings that flicks its way up sheer rock faces like a butterfly. Descends to the valley cliffs as the cold sets in.
The Land of the Kinnars
Kinnaur takes its name from the Kinnars of Sanskrit epic — half-human, half-divine musicians of the mountains, neither one thing nor the other. The old people here will tell you the district was their country before it was anyone else’s. The Mahabharata places the exiled Pandavas on these trails, and the twin peaks of Kinner Kailash across the ridge are held to be Shiva’s winter residence, where the seventy-nine-foot rock lingam changes colour from dawn grey through gold to deep rose as the day turns.
Gods Who Speak
Every village in the Baspa keeps its own devta, and the devta keeps the village. The deity travels in a palanquin carried on the shoulders of the men, tilting and pulling to answer questions put to it; a gur, the oracle, speaks in the god’s voice when he is entered. Land disputes, marriages, the timing of a harvest and the fate of a proposed road have all been settled this way, and still are. Visitors are welcome to watch from a respectful distance — ask your host first, and never photograph the deity without permission.
Fulaich and the Turning Year
The valley’s calendar is a working one. In late summer comes Fulaich, the festival of flowers, when young men climb to the high meadows to gather blooms that are carried down, offered to the ancestors and worn in the cap; there is Kinnauri Nati danced in slow lines for hours, and home-brewed angoori and chhang poured freely. Sazo in winter marks the departure of the gods to the heavens and Losar their return with the new year. Weddings cluster in the cold months, when the fields ask nothing and a village has time to celebrate for three days at a stretch.
Kath-Kuni: Building Without Mortar
The old houses are kath-kuni — alternating courses of dry-laid stone and squared deodar beams, interlocked at the corners and raised without a drop of cement. The timber gives the wall the flex to ride out an earthquake; the stone gives it mass against the cold. Roofs are slate, pitched steep to shed snow. Balconies and door frames carry deep-cut floral and geometric work by carpenters who trained on temple commissions. Ground floors traditionally wintered the livestock, whose warmth rose into the living rooms above — insulation and stable in one design.
Orchards, Buckwheat and the Famous Bean
Kinnaur apples are the valley’s pride and its economy: cold nights and hard sun give them a density and keeping quality that fetches a premium far down in the plains, and by September the terraces are stacked with crates awaiting the truck. Around the orchards grow buckwheat, barley, peas and the Sangla rajma — a small, thin-skinned kidney bean that cooks soft and sweet and is worth carrying home. Higher on the slopes stand chilgoza pines, whose long cones are beaten down each autumn for their pine nuts, one of the most valuable forest harvests in the Himalaya.
The Shepherd’s Year
When the snow releases the passes, the flocks go up. Shepherds move sheep and goats to the thach — the high summer pastures at the head of the Baspa toward Charang and the Lamkhaga — and live up there for months in stone shelters, coming down only for supplies. The wool comes back as pattu, the thick woven cloth worn against the wind, and as the grey Kinnauri cap with its green-and-red band that every man in the village owns. In October the animals descend ahead of the first heavy fall, and the valley closes in on itself for the winter.
The Valley Itself
Rakchham stands where three landscapes meet. Below, the Baspa runs glacial and loud over a bed of pale shingle. Around the village, blue pine, deodar and birch climb to a treeline that ends abruptly in alpine meadow. Above that is only rock, snow and the ridgelines that separate Kinnaur from Tibet. It is a soft, green, watered place with a hard border on every side — which is precisely why, on a clear night with the village lamps out, the sky over the boulder fields is as dark and as crowded with stars as anywhere in India.
Scenes from the expedition
Packing list
- Warm layers & a windproof jacket
- Thermals for high-altitude nights
- Sturdy trekking / riding shoes
- Sunglasses, sunscreen & lip balm
- Refillable water bottle
- Personal medication & basic first aid
- Power bank & charging cables
- Government photo ID (mandatory for permits)
Frequently asked
Do I need prior riding experience for the bike expedition?+
Comfortable long-distance riders will enjoy it most. We assess fitness and can seat you in the support vehicle on tougher stretches.
How do you handle altitude?+
The route is designed for gradual acclimatisation, with buffer days and an oxygen cylinder plus first-aid in the support vehicle.
What is included in the price?+
Accommodation, most meals, permits, mechanic and support vehicle, and expert local guides. Fuel for self-ride and personal expenses are separate.
Is the circuit family-friendly?+
The Tempo Traveller option suits families and first-timers. Children above 8 are welcome with guardians.
Join the Spiti Circuit
Reserve your place on our next departure. Small groups fill quickly.