BharatSangraha

Kinnaur & Spiti · Western Himalaya & Trans-Himalaya

Terrain and eco-zones

Two climates in one region, separated by the Great Himalayan crest. Lower Kinnaur still catches the tail of the monsoon and gets several hundred millimetres a year; Spiti sits in the rain shadow and receives very little, most of it as winter snow, which makes it a cold desert by rainfall and an arctic one by temperature. Winter minima in Spiti run far below freezing for months and the ground is frozen from November to March. The determining fact is not cold but dryness — nothing grows here that is not irrigated by hand-dug channel.

Landforms

The Sutlej gorge — the river has cut 2,000 m below the ridgelines, so villages sit on terraces and alluvial fans far above the water they cannot useKinner Kailash massif and the Baspa (Sangla) valley behind itHangrang plateau — the high, treeless shelf along the lower Spiti river around Nako and ChangoSpiti's flat-floored trough with hanging side-valleys and enormous fluvio-glacial terracesKunzum and Baralacha crest ranges closing Spiti to the north-westMarine fossil beds — the Tethys sedimentary sequence that once lay under an ocean, now at 4,000 m

Rivers and waters

Sutlej — rises beyond the watershed in Tibet and enters India at Shipki, the only major Indian river that crosses the Himalaya rather than beginning in itSpiti — drains the whole trans-Himalayan valley and joins the Sutlej at KhabBaspa — the Sangla valley river, joining the Sutlej at KarchamPin — the Spiti's largest tributary, and the valley with the region's national parkRopa, Taiti and Tirung — the Kinnauri side-streams that irrigate the apple terraces

Through the year

SeasonMonthsTypicalWhat it is like
WinterNovember–March-25 to 8 °C depending on altitudeSpiti freezes solid. Kunzum La closes and the valley's only road link is the long way round through Kinnaur, which itself shuts for days at a time. Villages live on what was dried and stored; this is the season for weaving, for chhang and for Losar.
SpringApril–May0–20 °CChannels are cleared and repaired collectively before water is released, barley is sown in Spiti, and the apple bloom moves up the Sutlej valley altitude by altitude.
SummerJune–August10–30 °CThe working season. Kunzum opens, the Pin and Parvati passes are crossed on foot, and the monsoon reaches lower Kinnaur but not Spiti — which is why the landslide risk is severe below Wangtu and negligible above Nako.
HarvestSeptember–October2–22 °CBarley and buckwheat cut in Spiti; the apple crop moves out of Kinnaur in trucks on a single road. Chilgoza cones are knocked down and roasted, and the flower festivals fall in this window.

Best time to visitMid-June to early October for Spiti by either road, and September for the apple harvest and the flower festivals in Kinnaur. Spiti in deep winter is possible via Kinnaur and is a genuinely different place, but it demands acclimatisation, time and a tolerance for road closures.

The climate, landforms, rivers and seasons of Kinnaur & Spiti, and the best time of year to visit. (4)