Mana Pass

Mana Pass, alternatively Māna La, Chirbitya, Chirbitya-la, or Dungri La, is a mountain pass in the Himalayas on the border between India and Tibet. It appears to now be one of the highest vehicle-accessible pass in the world, containing a road constructed in the 2005-2010 period for the Indian military by the Border Roads Organisation and visible on 2011 imagery on visual globe systems such as Google Earth. The well-graded gravel-dirt road is higher on the Indian side than the new road on the Tibetan side, and rises to 5610m on the Indian side of the border, 250m west of the low point of the 5608m Mana Pass.GeographyMana Pass is located within the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve, 24 km north of the town of Mana, India and 52 km north of the Hindu pilgrimage town of Badrinath in Uttarakhand. It is the source of the Saraswati River, the longest stem of one of the longest Ganges tributaries, the Alaknanda River. That river trickles through several scenic small ponds between the pass and Lake Deo Tal three km southwest of the pass. Mana pass is also the key col for climbing Chaukhamba peak.