Manali: The Himalayan Valley of Apples, Adventures and Old Gods

The name Manali comes from Manu-Alaya — the home of Manu, the Hindu Noah who landed his ark here after the great flood. Today the valley welcomes a different flood: two million visitors a year come for snow, cedar forests, and adventure sports in the shadow of the Pir Panjal. But scratch the tourist surface of Manali and you still find a 450-year-old temple where the village deity is consulted on matters of crop and marriage.

From Silk Road caravan stop to India's Switzerland

The Kullu–Manali valley sits on the ancient trade route from Central Asia to the plains. Caravans came over the Rohtang Pass (3,978 m) from Ladakh and Lahaul carrying rock salt, borax, pashmina wool and dried apricots. Shepherds called Gaddis still move their flocks over the same passes every summer. In 1840 a Scottish surveyor named Moorcroft first wrote the valley up as a possible British hill station, but it was only in the 1870s that the British planted the apple orchards for which the region is now famous — today Himachal produces over 700,000 tonnes of apples a year, more than a quarter of India's supply.

The other Manali — the one above the cedar line — belongs to the pagan hill gods. The Hadimba Devi Temple (1553), built by Raja Bahadur Singh, is a pagoda of stacked deodar wood in a primaeval forest, dedicated to the demoness who married the Pandava warrior Bhima. Further up at Vashisht, natural hot springs have been collected by villagers for a millennium in a stone tank that predates the temple above it. Old Manali, across the Manalsu footbridge, is where the 1970s hippie trail once ended — today it is the valley's café and bakery quarter.

What to do — by season

• December–February: ski and snowboard at Solang Valley — India's largest beginner slope.
• March–June: paraglide off Solang, raft Grade III+ rapids on the Beas, and trek the Beas Kund moraine.
• July–September: cross Rohtang Pass to Spiti Valley — a high-altitude moonscape dotted with 1,000-year-old Buddhist monasteries.
• October: apple-picking week across 15,000 orchards — most homestays let guests harvest their own breakfast.

Pair it with the greater Himalayan loop

Manali is the south-western anchor of a classic Himalayan circuit. A hundred kilometres south-east is Shimla — the British summer capital — connected by the daily Volvo service. If the snow season is what pulls you, cross the country north-east to Auli in Uttarakhand, where the ski slopes look straight at Nanda Devi. And if the rivers are your calling, the wildest white-water runs are five hours further south on the Ganges at Rishikesh. For the deeper Tibetan-Buddhist chapter across the passes, read the monasteries of Ladakh and Spiti. Explore more Himachal Pradesh destinations or the full Hill Station category.