MANALI: Thousands of tourists racing to see deep snow at Solang and upper Manali left the roads almost choked for hours on Sunday.
A large number of tourists have reached Manali to see snow. The tourist crowd doubles on the weekends. Many others are camping here to see the fresh snowfall, which is expected from January 24 to 27. While snow is available near Manali town, tourists want to reach Solang to see powder snow and enjoy winter sports.
As a precaution, police are not allowing cars to move beyond Palchan village, 3km before Solang. It resulted in 4km-long queue of vehicles towards Manali. Not following traffic rules, tourists and taxi operators worsened the situation by jumping queues and choking traffic completely. Many tourists could not reach Solang.
Those stuck in long queues for hours stepped out of vehicles and started playing with snow by the roadside. "We were heading towards Solang in the morning when we saw a long queue of vehicles. We had to stop our car. We could hardly move 100m in more than one hour. We played with snow near Nehru Kund and then returned to Manali. We will try again on Monday," a tourist couple from UP said.
Even locals faced problems and were stuck in traffic jams. Police had to work hard to streamline traffic. Local taxi drivers said extra police force should be deployed to manage traffic at least on the weekend and snow should be removed from parking at Solang. Police said only four-wheel-drive vehicles are allowed to go to Solang valley as the road between Palchan and Solang is still covered with slippery ice. Atal tunnel is still closed to tourists.
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