Taming the passes on two wheels :  Manali -  Leh 2016

Being stationed out of Solang in Manali I would see hoards of cyclists climb Rohtang and vanish beyond almost every day. I would ask them their itinerary and most would plan to reach Leh in 7-8 days. Knowing the road off the map and understanding what the climbs and altitudes meant, I knew they were out for a tough one.     

With no significant cycling after the Paris Brest Paris 1200 km in Aug 15, the Manali Leh trip seemed a tougher nut to crack every passing day. However, being finally coaxed into it by someone who got me into cycling in the first place helped me seriously give it a shot. With having peddled less than 50 km in the last 6-8 months, I knew it was going to be tough.

I was shocked when I saw the first draft plan, we were planning to cover the complete route over five days. 460 + km over five days, starting the climb from less than 8000 ft and crossing passes higher 17500 ft. The cumulative climbs were going to be nothing less than 30,000 ft.  It sounded crazy for a second but then I thought well, what the hell, what’s life without a challenge. Cycling or even the thought of it makes me go off my rocker.  

I had no time to prepare, I did what I could, I took out my MTB (Trek 4300 D), cleaned and oiled it, did around 70-80 kms with decent climbs to get used to the saddle. I knew that nothing could prepare me for what I had signed in for. I wished and prayed that sanity would prevail and we would slip in a rest day or two within the trip.

So it was on 17 July 2016 that we took off. It had been pouring since the last few days and we decided that we would start at Gulaba which was about 20 kms ahead of palchan which would save us some distance and a significant climb on the first day apart from being less prone to pouring rains. We mounted our cycles on a bolero and headed for Gulaba, all we could travel was about two kms when we hit a traffic jam because of an oil tanker turning turtle on a narrow hilly road towards Gulaba. After waiting for ten minutes we decided to dismount our cycles and thereon began the journey. O’neal(my co-rider) and Pi (that’s me)  were on the way.

We weren’t by ourselves, we had family with us, Sonya, an excellent ophthalmologist and even better ornithologist   (wondering if she got the spellings confused in the entrance exams ;) )  Oneal’s way better half, their “not a school going daughter” Ayushi, Chirpy Ela with a contagious smile and friendly Border Collie tendencies (which kept our cycle chains all tidied up). They joined us mid of the first day and journeyed with us on a car meeting us enroute and at the halts.

All loaded up for Gulaba

So now down to the cycling stuff.

Day One

Having left solang at 0745 at about 0800 the traffic at Plachan ensured that we started from Palchan itself instead of Gulaba as planned. The weather gods were helpful as we started with no rains whatsoever. We made our first stop at Gulaba. The cycle was behaving well and I thought we weren’t too tired even though Gulaba was quite an incessant climb.

High spirits as we headed to Rohtang Pass

We took a small stop and regained out breath to trudged forward towards the formidable Rohtang perched beyond 13000 ft. We covered two thirds of the way to Rohtang at Marhi by when the rain gods couldn’t extend mercy any more. It started pouring and pouring heavily.

We tried to manage with our wind cheaters but soon the ponchos came out. The climb wasn’t so fancy any more, the bad patches on the road were now mud and mire. The fog meant no visibility, sharp curves and tourist traffic added to the thrill. Being the first day we were considerably fresh and we prevailed over the vagaries and finally reached Rohtang top by 1430 hrs. Hunger pangs were killing me by then, we took a much deserved food break.

Looking and feeling not so pretty under the rains

I knew it was all downhill to Sissu from here. What I didn’t know was that the downhill was going to be through incessant rains, an extremely mucky, slippery road and not such a fairy tale as I thought. However, the two of us persevered that as well as we reached the end of the descent at Koksar with just another 15 kms to Sissu, our first days destination.

Cycles took the slush toll too

We were now in Lahaul. We had a warm cup of tea at a roadside Dhaba and took off. We passed the north portal of Rohtang tunnel on the way. When we were just 5 kms short of Sissu our, not so motley a, support crew arrived on a car. By the time the Chandra river and salubrious climes of lahaul had already lifted our spirits, their arrival added to the festivities. We finally reached Sissu by 1800 hrs having covered 76 Kms during the day. It wasn’t such a bad day. Rohtang was beyond us and morale was high. We stayed at Sissu at a hotel called PLM Dhara with clean rooms and some good Indian food.  
          

The Rohtang Tunnel North Portal 7 kms short of Sissu

Day 2

Many times the previous day especially when riding through the slush it came to my mind that we deserved to take a day break at Sissu.  However, the spirits in the morning were high and we headed for Patsio. We had no major passes to cross and Patsio was just 70 kms. We left later than we planned after a rich breakfast of stuffed paranthas.

The road from sissu to keylong though a descent wasn’t very cycling friendly thanks to absence of any riding surface for 25 out of the 30 km.

Somewhere between Sissu and Keylong short of Tandi

Keylong onwards to Darcha though the road was good but ascents and descents kept us on our toes, we remained on the tougher end of the gear ratios. We passed some beautiful places like Gemur and halted at Jispa for lunch where we had hot Maggi and I left my bag (which I had to return and pickup at night).

One of the numerous Tea halts - Keylong

Darcha-soaring spirits thanks to beautiful surroundings

We reached Darcha from Jispa in no time after which we had to climb quite a bit to reach Patsio by 1830 hrs. The road was bad especially for 5 kms after darcha and the climbs were excruciating as we kept loosing and regaining height, but we survived to live another day as we rested for the night at Patsio. Short of patsio is a serene tiny lake called Deepak Taal.

Patsio

Day 3

Surprisingly, I wasn’t as exhausted as I thought I would be, we started from Patsio at 0800 hrs after breakfast and fled to zing zing bar which was around 10 kms from us and the road was flat.

From zing zing bar started the ill famed Baralachla climb, it is not steep but is long and tiered which meant even when we thought we were there we actually weren’t, and there was yet another tier to climb. However helping ourselves with tiny “catching breath” halts and some oxygen swigs we reached Baralachla at 1300 hrs.

We did pass a beautiful lake called Vishal Taal just before reaching the top.  We took our customary snaps and headed straight down to Sarchu from there.

Elusive Baralachla  

The descent coupled with exceptional Himalayan natural beauty has a way of soothing your spirits. We stopped mid way on the descent at this huge makeshift tent for a hot cup of coffee. Its interesting how these guys rent out a small mattress bed at just rupees 100 for a night.

We took off from there for sarchu which was again a descent with a bad road till killing Sarai after which the last 10 kms was more or less a breeze till Sarchu. We had covered the lengths of Himachal Pradesh and were knocking on Ladhakh’s door.

    

Approaching Sarchu  

‘Border Collie’ Ela at work in Sarchu - she was such great help!!

Day 4

We left a little late from Sarchu towards Pang as we mantled another cycle for this stretch which the ladies had decided to ride turn by turn.  With an additional rider we reached the start point of the formidable Gata loops after having crossed Tring Tring, Whiskey and Brandy bridges.

We loaded back the third cycle here and started our 21 loop climb towards Nakeela. The loops were tough on the turns but were forgiving as the road stretches between the loops was flat offering some solace and breathing space.

Almost after 70 minutes of climbing we came to the end of loops and breathed a sigh of relief. We didn’t know that the devil was in the details; our maps weren’t telling us enough. We realized that we another 5 km climb to Nakeela after which Lachungla was still to be scaled. Gata loops had taken a toll and by now we were way above 12000 ft and altitude had started to act up as well. We reached Nakeela finally after an hour or so.

Gata Loops behind us at NakeeLa

The map showed Lachungla to be around 16 km away and only 400 odd m higher which we knew we could manage without any great difficulty. At Nakeela as I peeped out to trace Lachungla on the skyline I saw the road winding down, it was then that it hit me that to reach Lachungla we had to lose more than half of the height we had gained and then climb again . We had no options but to do it. Soon we let from Nakeela and without a peddle we descended into the whiskey nala from which began one of our tougher climbs to Lachungla.  We reached Lachungla about 2 hours after we started from the whiskey nala post lunch. I still think this was our toughest climb mainly due the fatigue and altitude we had already faced during the day.

LachungLa at last after a tiring climb from whiskey Nala

The balance 28 kms to Pang post Nakeela though a descent wasn’t too pleasant thanks to some very bad roads. We reached Pang at 1830 hrs exhausted though the gorgeous mountains and the rivulets kept us mesmerized. It was a tough 81 km day.

 

Day 5

We were still 140 km from karu our final destination for the journey. The previous day had been exhausting which made us change our plan, we planned to end day five at Rumtse which was 63 kms from Pang and 32 km after the Tanglangla Pass, the highest pass of the journey.

We started the day with a 5 km climb done in 45 odd minutes after which we hit the beautiful and flat Morey plains. The flat stretch of Morey Plains till Debring was taken on by the ladies, they are accomplishes riders in their own right and covered 35 odd kms in less than two hours after which we took to riding again from Debring.

Woman Power on Morey Plains

Within a km the climb to mighty Tanglangla started and we were back to the 1-1 gear combination yet again. I think more than 80% of the ride was on the 1-1 combo. The altitude showed its colours yet gain, the climb made us breathless, we took increasingly frequent stops and took a few swigs out of oxygen cans. The 14 km climb took us around 3 hours and we reached Tanglangla top at around 1500 hrs. We were elated and exhausted at the same time, the last climb was now history.

TanglangLa – 17500 ft barrier crossed!!

Rumtse was still 32 kms far. We took some snaps and began the descent when the magic hit us. The road was wide and the surface was smooth tarmac, I felt I was flying down. The valley was so beautiful that all the weariness was gone. The mountains and rivers soothed the eye and heightened the spirits. Rumtse was demoted to being just a tea stop. Thereon the Chortens and prayer flags unfurled in the scenery like a movie and in no time were we in Upshi having covered 50 kms in just about two hours. We faced some serious head winds from Upshi to Karu but by now 10-12 kms was nothing to deter our spirits and finally by 1900 hours we were in Karu with our support crew waiting to welcome us into cosy guest rooms.

Felt Welcome Indeed

We had achieved what we set out for without an injury, we were more elated than exhausted, we had fallen in love with mountains and rivers all over again, the prayers in the air had touched our spirits forever and untrained unpracticed me had again accompanied the usual suspect in another road down memory lane. Leh was conquered, or were we?? I think we, I am sure we!!

Om Mani Padme Hum!! Om Mani Padme Hum!! Om Mani Padme Hum!! Om Mani Padme Hum!!Om Mani Padme Hum!!OmMani Padme Hum!!OmMani Padme Hum!!    

Au Revoir Leh !!  I head back to Solang smitten Forever !!