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After trying for many years, it looks like my wish to do a road trip to Ladhak may finally become a reality in May 2019. But I am not sure if mid-May will be a good time to do a road trip to Ladhak? Some friends said that all roads/passes may not have fully opened till end-May. There will be lot of slush and mud due to the melting snow. Pl advice. It will help me in planning my trip.

Have a look at my travelogue of Ladakh trip during 11/05/2018 to 22/05/2018. Normally highpasses on Manali Leh road open after 14th May. That's a normal scenario. I suggest you keep an eye on news of road opening in this region. However, Second half of May month(after 15th May) is the best time to witness snow-walls on the high passes.

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Thanks for sharing your travelogue. Enjoyed reading it especially your comment on last page that May is the best time to do a road trip to Ladhak. More excited also because you guys did the trip from Ahmedabad - I was in Ahmedabad for over 35 years before shifting to Bangalore 3 years ago. Will surely keep coming to you with tons of queries as I work out my travel plans :D

Government opens up new routes for tourists in Ladakh.
News Source.

1. Merak- Loma Bend(Leh – Chumathang – Mahe – Nyoma – Loma Bend.)

2. Chusul- Kaksang La-Mahe( Chusul – Nama – Kaksang La – Horla – Mahe )

3. Durbuk – shahikul – Tharuk – Sato Kargyam – Parma – Erath – Chusul and Loma – Hanley

I am not sure about this route. However, my understanding says this route is Tangste-Chusul-Hanle. Any input?

4. Korzok – Nurbo – Sumdo – Parangla – Kazaand
5. Agham – Shayok – Durbuk

It looks like, they have officially allowed tourist to use these routes, where tourists had been travelling for the past several years.

This must be the trek route. But then I have seen several trek agencies already offering this trek connecting Spiti to Ladakh. Maybe it wasn't allowed in the reverse direction - Ladakh to Spiti.

Good thing these routes are opened up, will surely reduce the time it took in the DC office to convince them for these places. :thumbs up

A long due Leh-ladakh trip has been seeing light and a plan has been set accordingly. We'll be driving Chandigarh-Srinagar-leh-Manali-Chandigarh route.

I'd like to know if the roads are completely functional and cleared on this route 'Srinagar-leh' and Leh-Manali" by Mid-March until the end of the April. Any help/suggestion around this would be really helpful.

Any source of live update on these highways to follow?

Wishing you happy & safe trip, but schedule will mostly need to be postponed.
a) Traditionally, the Srinagar - Leh stretch (ZojiLa pass is major obstruction) opens earliest by end-April or early-May, but in the initial days the road would be quite bad in shape.
b) For the Leh - Manali route, traditionally the route opens by late-May, but the same bad shape for initial few days.
c) Zanskar route typically doesnt open before late-May.

In the initial days, there are occasional chances those roads around Ladakh sector again shut for a day or two, because of bad weather or bad road. Allow me to repeat - to tackle bad roads, a good GC vehicle would be nice.

So, kindly plan your trip accordingly, and postpone to get earliest by W2-May and W4-May for respective routes.

regards,
Pranav

We are planning to drive to Ladhak in mid May. But our 2 major concerns are:

1) how risky it would be to do a road trip with family at the start of the season. The roads would just be opening and they would be in a pretty bad shape.

2) how advisable is it to do the trip with 2 kids age 6 and 10? Anybody who has done a family trip with kids please share your experience.

Mid May is too early for Leh; the Rohtang pass would not have opened and Zojila is iffy. Best to postpone to late July or even better early September.

Travelling with kids is no problem; keep them in the loop by asking them to plan the trip and spot landscapes of interest on the drive. You should appear to be using their plan with some refinement of course. They will be so proud to have contributed in a major way to the trip.

This trip is on my bucketlist for long. I intend to drive from Bangalore and targeting September 2019 time frames. I have already applied leaves like three full working weeks with weekends. Will that be a good bet? I have a WagonR do you guys think the small car can take the trip?

When are you planning to drive?

I've seen people do Khardungla with their i10s, so wagonR should be alright considering it's small wheel base but be prepared with an engine/oil sump guard as you'll get many hits from rocks etc.

I saw that petrol cars fared better at higher altitudes (we were traveling in a diesel that was struggling after 15,000ft)
3 weeks is a good bet.

@Coolrats and @Sandy, I am also planning a solo trip during Aug or Sep 2019, flexible with dates, starting from BLR

Hi I am planning in mid-May. Thats the only time that works for me considering school and office schedules.

@Coolrats, are you planning a family trip or with friends?

@shivshanker, are you planning a road trip?

I have done Ladakh from Hyderabad in two weeks and covered most of the spots. So three weeks should be good.
My only suggestion, please don't try Shyok with WagonR. From Nubra come back to Leh and take the regular route for Pangong

Yes, a road trip, contemplating if I should start from BLR and go via HYD and NAG or via BOM, BOM will add atleast another 1000 kms. all depends on number of days that I can take off from Office.