The Highest Motorable Road - The Umling La

The Border Road Organisation has completed the new road that goes even higher than Khardung La. The road passing through Umling La (Pass) stands at a higher altitude than the base camp of Mount Everest. The new benchmark for travelers and adventure junkies is set at 19,300 feet. It is now the highest motorable road in the world, a record previously held by a road in Bolivia at 18,953 ft en-route to volcano Uturuncu. In India, Khardung La sits at an altitude of 17,582 ft, the Siachen Glacier is at 17,700 ft.

The road stretches for 52 kilometers and drives over the Umling Pass. At 19,300 feet, the road sits higher than the base camps of Mount Everest. Temperatures in the region drop down below -40-degrees Celsius in the winters and oxygen levels are alarmingly low, 50 percent less than at normal places. The construction of the road would have been tumultuous in the harsh terrain.

This new road now connects important regions and towns in the Chumar sector of eastern Ladakh. It will offer an alternative direct route for locals between Chisumle and Demchok from Leh. While it may help in developing the socio-economic condition and promote tourism, it will also help the army to ferry troops and supplies to camps in the region more easily.

Over the years, many adventure seekers, travelers, tourists, used the Khardung La in India as a benchmark of their ‘highest’ achievements. The road to Khardung La has been treacherous and arduous, irrespective of the tools having two, three, four, or more wheels. The roads of Ladakh take no prisoners the higher you climb.

It’s certainly breathtaking and it has a fearsome reputation. It remains an adrenaline-pumping journey and is not for the faint of lungs, heart, or legs. This strategic road has been constructed as a part of the Indian Army ‘s drive to provide faster connectivity to the sensitive Demchok zone and assumes great strategic significance in consideration of recent disputes with the Chinese military and advances being made by them along the Indo-Chinese border. Do not travel this road in severe weather conditions. Avalanches, heavy snowfalls, and landslides can occur anytime, being extremely dangerous due to frequent patches of ice. In the initial days, when this pass came to public knowledge, a lot of people traveled to it in 2017 and early 2018. But due to its extreme proximity to the India-China border, access to this area is now severely restricted. Civilians are no longer allowed to travel to the pass. This makes the road at Umling La Pass a remarkable feat of engineering carried out by the Border Roads Organisation.