Tourist thronging Rohtang Pass in HP

Kullu, Jun 7 (UNI) Large number of tourists are visiting Rohtang Pass in Himachal Pradesh this summer to beat the excessive heat of the plains where temperatures have been rising steadily.

A slew of adventure activities like ski scooters, ski tubes, skiing, sleigh and yak rides are quite popular with tourists visiting the Pass, which is the highest point on the Manali-Rohtang road, 51 km from Manali.

With temperatures remaining between 12 to 18 degrees during the summers, the tourists are enjoying their stay here, a month after the 13050 foot-high Pass was opened for vehicular traffic.

''We are enjoying our stay with snow all round. Its quite different from what it is like in the plains during the summers with temperatures over 40 degrees,'' said a tourist couple from Delhi.

Another tourist visiting Himachal for the first time said the unexpected snowfall on the Pass during their stay here had made their trip memorable.

However, lack of adequate infrastructure for the tourists visiting the state and repeated traffic jams on the Leh-Manali had made the stay of a few tourists a bit agonising.

Last year, the number of tourists visiting the state had crossed 62 lakh, more than the entire population of Himachal Pradesh, besides four lakh foreign tourists, Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh had said at a press conference a few days ago.

UNI XC AS HS PR VV1756