Tags: 2011 | himachal pradesh | himalaya | india | motorbike | travel

The morning we set out in the direction of Kunzum La Pass (4551 meters AMSL) was bitterly cold and the sky was full of grey, rainy clouds. First kilometers of the road were better than we anticipated, but we knew it was only a beginning... A few days earlier Kevin, who covered that route by bicycle, warned us that the quality of the surface would degenerate with every kilometer, reaching a horrible climax somewhere between Batal and Grampoo. Unfortunately he was right.

This isn't the best picture possible, but the story behind is the reason why I decided to publish it: the man visible on the photo was walking to Manali wearing clother we would call "summer-time". He had no money to pay for the bus.

Covering the distance of ca. 30 kilometers separating Losar (the “last” village in Spiti Valley) from Batal (the “first” settlement on the other side of the pass) took us about four hours. Our moods soared high, as crossing the first major pass on our way proved to be much easier than we had ever imagined. The condition of the road was quite good (as for Himalayas), with some small stones or puddles decorating it, which in reality didn’t even get close to being serious obstacles. There were also no landslides, which to be honest, were the major thing we worried about.

The beginning was relatively easy and sections of some loose rocks like this were rare.

From here it was only one more kilometer to the top of the pass. The road, as you can see, was really good.

This the second of only two falls we had while climbing Kunzum La Pass. Here we underestimated steepness of the slope. When it became too steep motorbikes lost all ability to climb and stopped. Trying to ride on 1st gear didn't help, we had to take a detour.

Finally: the top of Kunzum La Pass (4551 m). Mountains hiding in clouds lay in Lahul Valley.

As you can see there were no great views from the top of the pass, with all possibly interesting mountains severely obscured by the clouds. Thus without much delay we descended to Batal, where we were more than happy to find a seasonal restaurant offering delicious omelets (yeah!) and a bit less happy to meet a crowd of Hindustani pilgrims on their way to the Chandartal Lake. The monsoon season was approaching its official end (though I doubt the weather knew anything about it) and the more adventurous ones rushed to take a bath in the holy lake. It was to bring them luck in the incoming season, or so they believed. For us their presence was a clear sign that forsaking the idea of visiting the lake was a very accurate decision. With the time so saved we started to hope we could reach the first settlement of any reasonable size (some 20 km away) or maybe even Grampoo (30 km further away) before the evening.

To see how naive we were we didn’t have to go far.

Batal - a "settlement" at the Easternmost part of Lahul Valley. From here it was 50 kilometers to Grampoo, where the "road" joined Leh - Manali Highway. The kilometer count given on the sign was inflated. In reality Leh was 100 km closer.

In Lonely Planet's guidebook to India someone wrote that Lahul Valley was a fertile and green place. One could hardly say that about the Eastern part of the valley, which the guidebook's author probably never vistited.

First serious obstacles, which were to slow our ride for the next 20 kilometers we encountered, just a hundred or so meters from Batal. Although the valley was almost as dry as Spiti its walls were much more eroded and jagged. The valley floor was full of rock debris and the road was no exception. There were stretches, sometimes two or three kilometers long, where it was all covered by a thin blanket of small stones. Too small and too sparse to create a stable surface, but at the same time big enough to make the wheel and the handlebar jumping and bouncing like crazy.

Similar sections of the road, usually 2-3 kilometers long, we encountered for four or five times. They were a real pain in the ass. These stones may look innocent, but with a bike like Pulsar, which front is lightweight, the front wheel bounces even in encounter with something of such size.

Sometimes there were some additional attractions. Like streams flowing down the road. They were neither deep nor big, but made the whole stone surface even more unstable. Other times water created small pools, with bottoms littered with sharp stones, which made the pools demanding (but at the same time also more fun) to cross. To make matters more interesting some nasty-looking storm clouds started to gather behind our backs and we feared that the incoming rainfall might change those small obstacles into insurmountable ones and trap us somewhere on the road. Thus we tried to ride as fast as possible with the little experience we had.

One of the smaller streams flowing down the road.

This picture shows a typical crossing of a medium-sized stream flowing down the road. When one of us chose a wrong path and the front wheel met a stone simillar to the one on photo, the only way to go forward was either to get off the bike and move the stone or to have the other rider do it or push the bike.

In spite of all those small obstacles we were slowly moving forward, though riding was exhausting and far from pleasant. But all in all we didn’t crash too often and there were even sections were we could ride as fast as 30 km/h. Thus during first three or four hours we managed to cover ca. 20 kilometers. Then, suddenly, things started to get more demanding.

First we encountered a short, but steep and rocky section of the road, which looked more like an old river bed than a road. Then we were stopped by a major stream crossing. Objectively speaking both hindrances weren't difficult and an experienced biker wouldn’t probably have noticed them at all. But with us things looked different.

This was definitely the worst road I ever seen in my life. Though it was only 30 meters long I couldn't stop wondering how it would be ride on something like that for several kilometers...

So, this was the first hindrance. What about the second one?

The knee-deep pool was about three meters long and sharp, melon-sized rocks covered its bottom. Because of rapid flow of the water we couldn't see where the bottom was more flat and thus easier to pass. And with a cold, rainy weather, crossing the stream on foot to check it “organolepticaly” was too much for me. I was going to just charge forward and somehow try to push through to the other side. Fortunately a Hindu biker on a powerful Pulsar 220F appeared out of nowhere (a friendly Himalayan spirit probably) and lead the way. Thus fortified I tried to follow his example, but I got stuck in the middle of the crossing with my bike collapsing into the stream. Our savior was quick to react and together with Justin he jumped straight into the water. After a short struggle, we managed to get the machine to the opposite bank to find out that miraculously water didn't get inside the engine or exhaustion system. (if that happened we would have to get it out somehow to make the engine running again). Needless to say our shoes and pants weren’t that lucky. Thus when it was Justina’s turn to cross the stream I entered the pool and stabilized the bike from behind to facilitate the crossing. Thanks to that she managed to get through without a fall.

Wet (and dirty – as Dick4Dick once sang) up to the thighs, but at the same time cleansed of all tensions and worries, we started to ride faster and more aggressively. Reaching Grampoo (some 27 kilometers ahead) before dusk became our goal, which we were decided to purse at all costs. The vision of a warm and dry place to sleep was too attractive to resist.

After folding the crossing I was so excited that I took a photo of my wet boots and trousers, but forgot to shoot the crossing itself...

Eventually arriving at our dreamed destination proved to be quite straightforward, as with the above mentioned stream crossing we left behind the worst part of the road and shortly after 17 pm we joined the famous Leh – Manali Highway. The road was sealed and being naïve once more we were sure that the remaining 408 kilometers would be a piece of cake…

Looking east in the direction of Kunzum La Pass (some 45 km away from this place).

Looking west the future looked brighter, but weather was still far from perfect.

After covering the worst part of the road we even had sun from time to time. It was a great relieve for our chilled bodies.

Justina is already on the sealed Leh - Manali Highway near Grampoo. We came from the road on the right, which through Batal leads to the Kunzum La Pass.

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment