Place · Himalayan gateway pass · India
Rohtang Pass
Also known as Rohtang La, Rohtang Pass, Rohtang
The 3,978-metre pass on the Pir Panjal range that connects the Kullu Valley to Lahaul and Spiti, and the historical overland route between the Hindu and Buddhist Himalayas. The pass is open roughly May through October and is closed by heavy snow for the rest of the year. The 2020 Atal Tunnel beneath the pass — at 9.02 km the longest highway tunnel above 3,000 metres in the world — provides year-round road access to Lahaul for the first time in human history, ending a seven-month isolation that had defined Lahauli life.
- Function
- Landscape & environmental change
- Tradition
- Standard reference and local gazetteers; ASI, state archaeology and INTACH records where applicable.
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 32.372, 77.247
Connections (1)
- Route adjacencyMughal Gardens of Kashmir
Rohtang Pass is the historical road from the Kullu Valley into Lahaul and Spiti — the overland connection between the Hindu Himalayas of Himachal and the Buddhist Himalayas beyond. For centuries the pass was closed six months of each year, which gave the Lahauli culture its distinctiveness: a Tibetan-adjacent Buddhist population a hundred kilometres from the Mughal Kashmir gardens. The 2020 Atal Tunnel ended that annual isolation after millennia.