Thank Buddha we made it, we’ve traversed the mighty Himalaya and rode our bikes to the top of the highest road in the world, the Khardung-La Pass, 18000ft above sea level….
see the pic below…
here is the final chapter of our journey….
8th Aug 07 – Keylong – Patseo
After a couple of rest days in Keylong and quite a few beers with the hotel manager the night before, we left Keylong on a hangover at around 11.30am, we went straight into a long, hot, slow climb, both of us feeling rubbish and blaming the altitude, but it was probably more to do with the festivities of the night before (they say you shouldn’t drink at altitude – hmm). The climb went on for quite a while following the bhaga river as we slowly came out of our self-induced stupor as alcohol was replaced by cool fresh mountain water.
After a few hours we descended back to the river to a place called “Darcha” and a collection of dhabas on the river crossing, one of which we ate in, then retired inside to the mattresses for a sleep. We were out for a while and didn’t leave the dhaba until gone 4pm after showing our passports at the ploice checkpoint. As we crossed the river we immediately began another climb, it was good tarmac and after resting we ascened it with ease.
At the top of the climb we put some warm clothes on as it was getting late and turning cold in the shadows of the moutains. As we turned away from the climb, the scenery changed from the green slopes of Keylong to the drier, sparser slopes resembling Ladakh. We continued uphill to Patseo, where there was a small grassy plain, already occupied by a bunch of cyclists on an organised tour and a couple of dhabas. We made our home for the evening in one of the dhabas and the owners served us with chai and noodles. The owners were, as usual, warm freindly people who made us feel welcome. We camped in our tent near the dhaba.
Pic – camping at patseo
9th Aug 07 – Patseo – Baralacha-La – Sarchu
We left Patseo, after being told by one of the guides of the cycling tour group that this was “the toughest day on the Manali-Leh highway” and that we should have left at 7am – it was 10.30am – bugger! Oh well, we like sweating it out in the hottest part of the day!
Anyway, after hearing this we were a bit apprehensive of what lay ahead of us, that being the “Baralacha-La pass”, all 4950m (16300ft) of it. The day didn’t start well, we both didn’t feel too good, a combination of altitude and tiredness, we had tired legs and were beginning a 19 mile climb 3 hours later than is recommended. Another factor in this equation was that the roads were terrible, we bumped and jarred our way up at 3-4mph to “Zing-Zing bar” a dirty, road builders dumping ground filled with oil drums, hoping to find a dhaba for a cold drink, there wasn’t one so we pushed on further up the pass until we found one.
We stopped for a coke and to reassure each other that we’d make the climb with enough spare daylight to get down the other side, but we were already having reservations and we’d only been going two hours and the summit seemed an eternity away.
After the dhaba the roads improved, thankfully, from rock to tarmac, this lifted our spirits and we began to progress better the meters beginning to click up on our altimeters. At one of our rest stops we were joined by a small gang of BRO (Border Roads Organisation) workers, this a military organisation who build and maintain the high mountain roads, providing tarmac to make ours and more importantly, the militarys lives easier while negotiating these unimaginably high, remote roads. The BRO gang consisted of a foreman and 3 workers, they parked their tarmacing machine beside us and immediately got out their lunch, which had been warming somewhere in the guts of their rig and offered to share what they had with us. We jumped at the chance of chappati and veg curry as we’d only eaten biscuits since we left. Again, like the tribeswomen of the Kunzum-La, this was unprovoked kindness, one which you would never experience had you not been suffering up a mountain on a heavy bike, as opposed to shooting through in a jeep or bus. They shared their lunch for 4 with an extra 2 and I have no doubt, while we were busy gobbling it down, that they had less than us to eat.
After lunch the guys proudly posed for a photo next to their tarmac rig, we said our goodbyes and pushed on up the pass feeling better for the food.
Pic – BRO crew (and Matt) on Baralacha
We finally limped on to the the summit at about 4.15pm, put on some warm clothes and collapsed against the wall of the small buddhist shrine, a welcome sight after 6 hours of climbing. We took some photos and surveyed the barren, beautiful, snow-capped peaks about us prepared to face the rocky downhill in front of us, the sun was getting low, the air colder and we still had a fair way to go before our destination of “Sarchu”.
Pic – On top on the Baralacha La pass
We bumped our way down the “road” as fast as we could under the circumstances as we knew time was against us. We forded rivers, got wet feet and pushed on, until eventually coming to halt at the back of a traffic jam of Tata trucks which had fromed due to a broken bridge across a river. We snaked our way through the jam and, being cyclists, were given special treatment and helped across the bridge by a gang of workers and a helpful English tourist (himself stranded) over the broken section of the bridge, which was lucky, as there was no way we’d have been able to ford the raging torrent beneath.
We follwed the rough road further downhill, before another watery rocky section pummelled us, causing my pannier to break and Matt to fall off! After a further 12 miles of horrible road we eventually turned onto the Sarchu Plain and a beautiful, straight, slightly downhill tarmac road, it was bliss, we crusied along at 30mph following the pancake flat plain, surrounded by jagged , bone-dry peaks, until eventually pulling into “Raspian” campsite and hiring a comfortable tent with real beds and supply of good food and cold beer! We were at 4400m (14500ft) and took the next day off for acclimatisation.
11th Aug 07 – Sarchu – Whiskey Nullah
Woke up and actually got up at a staggering 6am! What a sight we saw, the moutains at the edge of the plain in front of us were glowing gold in the clear early morning light with cloudless sky a gorgeous rich shade of blue.
Pic – Morning on the Sarchu Plain
Pic – Golden mountains
After a slow pack-up and a breakfast of the now tiresome omlette-chappati we hit the road at 9am, we cruised along the plain, stopping regualry to take take photos of the staggering beautiful scenery about us. Where the grassy plain ended golden mountains sprouted up, glistening gold and yellow in the morning light. The lower slopes of the mountains were covered in shining bright scree, like space dust with the Lingti river cutting a narrow gorge bisecting the plain with small towers of rock protruding from the gorge caused by erosion from the ever present southerly wind that sweeps down off the Baralacha-La, shaping much of what we can see before us, as well as helping us along with it’s warm presence on our backs.
Pic -The Sarchu plain
The plain turned a sharp-left and we continued on the smooth tarmac road, the mountains continued to fascinate us, changing colour again as the dark blue sky changed to a cloudy haze and with it a welcome drop in temperature. We bumped into a some fellow cycle tourists going the opposite way and exchanged info on our respective roads ahead and were surprised to learn that “The Gata Loops”, our next big climb, were literally just round the corner, as we weren’t expecting them until the next day, we put this down to unreliablle maps, but we were feeling good so it didn’t worry us too much.
So, a day early, we began the climb up the Gata Loops, 21 hairpin bends climbing up to 4700m (15500ft) and resembling the fabled Alpe-D’Huez. I was looking forward to this challenge as I’d climbed the Alpe itself in 2002 and watched the magnificent Lance Armstrong tear the field apart in the Tour De France that year on the same mountain. With Lance in my mind (if not in my legs) I cruised up the loops at a good speed, sadly, Matt wasn’t feeling too good and sat behind at his own pace. We regrouped at the top of the climb and rode under the prayer flag banner together before stopping for a rest.
Pic – View from the Gata Loops
Pic – End of gata loops
The Gata loops culminated in the “Nakeela-La Pass”, by finishing the loops we thought we’d finished the pass itself, sadly we were wrong and a tough 6 miles further of climbing awaited us before we topped out the 4940m (16300ft) of the Nakeela-La pass. This 6 mile stretch took us at least another hour on our tired legs (Lance well and truly gone from my mind) and being up at this altitude, the lack of oxygen was slowing our progress.
We eventually reached the summit, the prayer flags again being a welcome sight. We changed into warm clothes and took shelter from the cold wind and rested, observing the hundreds of small stome cairns all about the summit, eerily resembling garden gnomes. We didn’t hang around too long, the thin air and stone gnomes playing tricks on our oxygen depleted minds!
Pic – Top of Nakeela-La Pass
We set off on the short downhill to “Whiskey Nullah”, a small grassy plain in between two passes, our camp spot fro the night, “nullah” meaning stream and our only oppurtunity for essential fresh water. As we closed in on the camp spot we saw it ws already occupied by the same tour group (Red Spokes) we’d met in patseo, we rolled in on our fully laden bikes and were given a warm welcome by them and a lot of compliments due to the fact that we’d kept up with them, unsupported, carry everything we needed to survive on our heavy steel bikes! They were very hospitable and treated us to a fully catered dinner snd breakfast which was much appreciated!!
Pic – Camping at Whiskey Nullah (tatas in the background climbing the Lachlung-La pass)
Continued in next blog post……
0 Responses to “Leh- Ladakh (Jammu & Kashmir)”