Patalsu Peak, 4200m

By:  Sam
March 10, 2010


As most who follow this website regularly are aware, Allen and I have been in India for the last two months. As we’ve basically been using tin cans and string for internet, it’s been hard to go through the bandwidth intensive process of editing and formatting posts to FIS. Our new home of Vashisht, up the road from Manali, has much better internet connections than Gulmarg did, so I’ll hopefully be able to keep you better appraised of our adventures for the remaining weeks of our trip. To those interested in catching up on what we’ve been up to, you can read older posts on the Boston.com Ski Guru blog, or wait for the recap TR I’ll be writing when I return home.

So, without further adeu, Patalsu peak, the first real mountain we’ve been able to climb since our arrival in Manali:

Patalsu Peak 4220m
Now that we have a copy of the Kullu Valley Ski guide book (we left our copy in Gulmarg), we decided to head up the valley for a real tour. Nothing too big or challenging, but enough to help re-gain some of the acclimation we’d lost since Gulmarg. After a little discussion, we settled on the highly regarded Patalsu Peak, a 4220 meter (13,845ft) peak at the head of the Kulu Valley, near Solang. Though tall, it’s a pretty simple and straightforward climb to the top, and we felt we’d be able to pull it off, despite our lack of fitness.

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Allen and Amit getting ready in the pre-dawn light.

In order to be down by the time the snow got too warm in the afternoon, we awoke at 4am and were out the door by 5, and we didn’t encounter a soul as we rode our Enfields up the moon-cratered road in total darkness. At Solang, we left the bikes and hiked on dry ground to the town of Old Solang, up the hill from the newer resort village. The first rays of sun were starting to hit the peaks just as we encountered the snow line on the terraced fields above the old town, and at that point we hid the shoes, and began skinning. The grippy refrozen corn snow we found was perfect for fast mountain travel and had us up to treeline by 8:30 as the lighting across the valley was getting dramatic.

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Sun hits 5000+m Friendship Peak, across the valley.

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Allen and Amit get above treeline as the lighting gets dramatic.

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The just under 6000m Hanuman Tiba.

After a short break, we began the hardest part of the day: the last thousand meters of climbing, under a hot sun, with the peak in plain view for the entire climb. As the elevation increased, and the air thinned, our pace slowed to a crawl. By 3800m we’d get a little dizzy when we stopped to rest, and I developed a little nausea, but, with a careful eye on our symptoms, we pressed on towards the top.

We reached the summit almost exactly at noon amidst an altitude induced mental haze. The views were stunning, but as I lifted my camera to take photos, it felt as if it weighed 50 lbs. Fully aware that we were suffering the effects of the thin air, we switched our gear over as quickly as possible and started the massive descent back to Old Manali.

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Allen and Amit enjoy the view back down the Kullu Valley towards Manali.

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Allen begins the descent.

The views were astounding, but our minds were on the skiing. In our weakened states, the slightly crusty corn snow we were on proved extremely challenging and fatiguing to ski, and demanded our full attention. As we slowly made our way down the enormous west face of Patalsu peak, we (stupidly) passed by a traverse that would have taken us hard to the right, and back to our line of ascent. Instead we were drawn down the main drainage, directly towards Old Manali, and some rather large cliffs towards the valley floor. We had thought that there would be a lower way to traverse out to the slope we ascended on, but as we skied lower and lower it became abundantly clear that this was not the case.

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Amit, skiing the wrong way down the drainage.

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Amit making the “we made a mistake, didn’t we” face.

As the fog lifted from our brains, and our muscles started to work again, we decided that since we were rapidly running out of snow, it was time to hike back up to the correct aspect. 200m of steep boot packing through brush brought us back to the ridge, where, exhausted, we re-donned our ski gear and zipped down to the spot where we’d stashed our shoes on the terraced fields above old Manali.

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Maybe that traverse is a little further…

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Looking doubtful.

As we sat on the terraces, drying out our feet and stretching out a bit, a group of three boys, two on home made skis, and one on a pair of skis about twice his height came hiking up from the village and put on a bit of a demonstration for us. After watching several of their runs, we trudged the half hour back to the motorcycles, and enjoyed a surprisingly relaxing ride back to the Vashisht hot springs.

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Little boys learning to ski.


Walking down through the old town.


… and crossing the river back to the old city.

Though we felt like we were going to throw up in the high air, and our legs barely worked on our poorly navigated descent, Patalsu peak was a great success and a wonderful introduction to the possibilities of the Kullu valley. As I write this, two days later, we’ve begun planning several multi-day trips into some of the more remote drainage’s in the valley. With a little luck, the benefit of increased fitness, and some help from the weather, we’ll be able to ski some of the alluring and massive 5000+ m peaks in the area.

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The view from the top was pretty nice…

Read about the author:   Sam
Enjoy this TR? Read another: TR: Cold Town, Winter in the City

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8 Comments

  1. Greg
    wrote on March 10th, 2010 at 7:05 am  
    1

    Neat tr Sam! Glad you’re back on stable Internet. Looking forward to an extensive in depth tr when you guys wrap up. Your travels sure seem fascinating!

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
  2. Porter Haney
    wrote on March 10th, 2010 at 11:16 am  
    2

    Very cool guys. Looks like there are some behemoths in that valley!

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
  3. christian
    wrote on March 10th, 2010 at 8:42 pm  
    3

    good work boys, nice schussings! those peaks in the background are awesome.

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
  4. Chris Roon
    wrote on March 10th, 2010 at 9:57 pm  
    4

    Sam, Allen –
    You boys are living large. Don’t let the alluring cleavage of those peaks distract you to much.

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
  5. Ben
    wrote on March 11th, 2010 at 9:36 am  
    5

    Nice TR!!! Those mountains are amazing!

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
  6. K_C
    wrote on March 11th, 2010 at 10:15 am  
    6

    the first two pics of the mountains in the early am are great – looks like a lot of fun

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
  7. samthamandaddy
    wrote on March 16th, 2010 at 3:22 pm  
    7

    Yo Sam—Give the still camera to Allen once in a while. Need some shots of you,

    Respond to this comment/comment thread
  8. Chad Miller
    wrote on March 5th, 2013 at 1:49 am  
    8

    I skied this on Sunday! Wish I would have found your TR for the area before heading up here. I’m working in Chandigarh for two weeks and only escaped for a three day weekend. But I plan to be back next January to do more than just acclimatize.

    If you’re at Snowball in a few weeks it’d be cool to meet you. I’m currently living in the same house with Benj Wadsworth and Scott Schell. Those guys are pretty connected, if you know them ask for an intro if you’re at the event.

    http://app.strava.com/activities/42924892
    (My other two tours from the weekend registered some weird elevation gains. This one appeared to be accurate)

    Chad Miller

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