A view of the beautiful himalayan timberline as seen on the Patalsu mountain. As mentioned earlier about the Solang village, before you reach the alpine range and are lost appreciating the picturesque scenery, you can get to know the Himachali himalayan culture during the first 2 hours of your trek. You will find a small population dispersed on the lower part of the hill. You may also counter farm cattle on the way. The first half in the tree-line is an already built track that mostly consists of concrete steps. So you would have no problem in the first hour of your trek. The higher part of the tree-line is also easy to climb due to low inclination. Then comes the alpine range which could be a bit tiring due to high slant and no fixed routes. You need to be a bit careful here or you may slip and fall or get your ankle twisted. You may see a mountain top and when you feel like reaching the top, you will find another such top and this continues. We stopped at the third such top we saw. You will need to stop climbing around 1 pm. and should start descending around 2 pm wherever you may be on the way. When you consider to stop and take rest you should wear wind jackets as you would be sweating after the climb and would would likely face higher wind velocities. Now comes the descending part. It may seem that it would be easy to return but actually its not. Climbing down the hill may take less physical effort but it’s more dangerous (I’m using term dangerous for a minor injury and not something life threatening). You need to be more careful while descending and try to control your speed. Do not try to run however exciting it may seem as once you start running downhill, your speed will only increase and it would be really difficult to stop unless you hit something or fall. Don’t forget to visit the Solang village if you ever visit Manali or you may miss trek of a lifetime.
