Debsa Pass is a

mountain pass A mountain pass is a navigable route through a mountain range or over a ridge. Since mountain ranges can present formidable barriers to travel, passes have played a key role in trade, war, and both Human migration, human and animal migration t ...

in the

Himalaya The Himalayas, or Himalaya ( ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the Earth's highest peaks, including the highest, Mount Everest. More than 100 pea ...

mountains between the

Kullu Kullu () is a municipal council town that serves as the administrative headquarters of the Kullu district of the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. It is located on the banks of the Beas River in the Kullu Valley about north of the airport ...

and

Spiti Spiti (pronounced as piti in Bhoti language) is a high-altitude region of the Himalayas, located in the north-eastern part of the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. The name "Spiti" means "The middle land", i.e. the land between Tib ...

Districts of

Himachal Pradesh Himachal Pradesh (; Sanskrit: ''himācāl prādes;'' "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a States and union territories of India, state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen Indian Himalayan ...

, India.

Joydeep Sircar Joydeep Sircar (born 1947) is a mountaineer and mountain historian. In 1979, he published his ''Himalayan Handbook'', an index of all the-then named peaks of 6096 meters (20000 feet) and above in Afghanistan and the Indian subcontinent, giving ...

led the teams that explored the watershed ridge and discovered the pass after approaching through the Parbati River valley in Kullu. After an abortive attempt on an impassable col further north in 1992, the pass was located and reached in 1993, but the team refrained from crossing it into Spiti under the mistaken impression that they could be arrested because they did not have Inner Line Permits required for Spiti. Two years later, the 1995 team planned to approach from the Spiti side, which involves much less height gain, but tremendous autumn floods in the upper valley of the Beas River and other areas of Himachal which wrecked roads forced them to take the Parbati approach again. This time they crossed the pass on 21 September and completed the route from Manikaran to Kaja. Leomann's 1:200,000 map of Himachal Pradesh (Third Edition, 2005) shows a dotted track beginning at a point between the Kach (should read Kachh) and Bara Dwari Thach campsites, and crossing the Kullu-Spiti watershed divide into the West Debsa Glacier to follow the West Debsa and Debsa streams to Thidim (should be Thango) in the Parahio Valley. This is a fairly accurate representation of the 1995 route, though the pass is unmarked.

References

*''Backdoor to Spiti: Debsa 1992-1995'' by Joydeep Sircar:

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

archives, London *''Backdoor to Spiti: Debsa 1992-1995'' by Joydeep Sircar:

Indian Mountaineering Foundation Indian Mountaineering Foundation is an apex national body which organize and support, mountaineering and rock climbing expeditions at high altitudes in the Himalayas. The organization also promotes and encourages schemes for related adventure ac ...

archives,

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Expedition Channel listing
*Leomann's Indian Himalaya Maps, Sheet 6, scale 1: 200,000, Himachal Pradesh, Third Edition,2005 by West Col Productions, Goring, Reading RG8 9AA, UK () Mountain passes of Himachal Pradesh Mountain passes of the Himalayas Geography of Kullu district Geography of Lahaul and Spiti district {{HimachalPradesh-geo-stub