The Mother of All Drives - Part 2. Raskat - Solang - Rohtang Pass

Hanuman Tibba 

12 June 2001. Raskat - Manikaran - Kullu - Manali - Solang.

Chaman Singh's house overlooked the courtyard of the local primary school. The cheerful chatter of excited children filled the air as they prepared for a few hours of learning while we checked that the car tyres had air in them and that there were no oil leaks lurking on their underbellies. Chaman's wife stuffed us graciously with a liberal helping of aloo parathas and chai. Thus fortified, we were ready to face the perils of the road once again.

Ready for school!

The school

Our host Chaman Singh Thakur

The overnight rain ensured that the drive back to Manikaran was less dusty than the afternoon before, but the ensuing mud on the road plastered our vehicles with fresh coats of various shades of brown. Thus decorated, we motored happily onwards till a long and stationary line of vehicles brought us to a grinding halt. As is the custom while driving in India, we got out of the cars, stretched our legs, relieved the hydraulic pressures that inevitably build up in certain sectors of the anatomy as a result of cold air and the constant bumping, then decided to investigate the cause of this massive traffic jam on a very narrow mountain road.

After walking for more than half a kilometer past the parked vehicles, we found the reason for the long line-up. The overnight rain had caused a landslide to block the road. Even as we watched with the throng that had gathered, workers were busy trying to clear the obstruction: mud and stones and a rather large boulder had come crashing down the hillside, creating a mini crater which was filled knee deep with water. One of the workers had carved a narrow channel to let out the water which gushed out in a muddy brown ribbon, gradually exposing an imposing bed of thick, glutinous mud. Other workers jumped into the fray, scooping and hurling out the mud with large tins slung on a pair of ropes attached to each side for two people to work in unison.

Meanwhile an excavating machine was busy clearing the larger stones, its loud throaty growl echoing from the cliffs around while a slim spiral of black diesel smoke wafted upwards into the clean mountain air. There were cars, buses, trucks and vans waiting on the other side as well. People waited patiently and no one seemed to mind the delay that this incident had caused them.

The exception to this arrived suddenly on the scene in the form of a young Israeli with long dreadlocks mounted on a Bullet motorcycle, weaving through the crowd of vehicles and people, till he was at the edge of the crater. Obviously he was in a tearing hurry to go somewhere because he ignored the assembled onlookers and even the workers who tried to prevent him and drove his motorcycle straight into the mud bath where predictably he got stuck, submerged up to his knees in the thick mud, his Bullet puttering out unceremoniously. After everyone had had a good laugh and muttering "Serves him right", some good souls helped this rather immature and reckless youth out of his predicament.

The man operating the excavator nudged the last big boulder with consummate skill into the jaws of the metal bucket and the road was now free of obstruction. We all cheered. Filling up the ditch took another hour or so. Without further ado, the traffic began to move and very soon we drove into Kullu and onwards to Manali. Our destination for the day was Solang, further up the highway, to rendezvous with Franco Linhares, the fourth member of the Drive to Ladakh quartet.

Franco had arrived in Solang a few weeks earlier where he was conducting Outdoor Leadership courses for a company. We drove into Solang just as he had finished work for the day and he helped us settle in for the night.

13 June 2001. A SMALL WALK TO BEAS KUND.

Since this was Cheryl and Rosalyn's very first trip to the Himalaya, it was only fair that they be introduced to the joys of hiking in the hills. With this end in mind, we drove the short distance to Dhundi where we parked. There was a little tea stall under the canopy of an old parachute here. A quick cuppa followed and we were ready to walk.

I soon realized why this small hike to Beas Kund is so popular with most people I had met. It is easy to approach and in the short space of a few kilometers brings you up close to the glaciers below the peak of Hanuman Tibba, traversing flower filled meadows en route. The views back down the valley are also quite splendid. This was a great introduction for Cheryl and Rosalyn who had never experienced anything like this in their lives. They were thrilled and I realized how much I had begun to take things for granted after many trips to the mountains. Looking at everything with their fresh perspective was a good lesson in humility.

Franco lends a chivalrous hand to Sushma

The view down the valley

Deo Tibba rises behind the ridge

That evening we drove to Manali for a dinner of delicious momos, topped up our fuel tanks and bought an extra 30 liters which would come in handy for the long stretch between Udaipur and Leh where there were no fuel pumps.


14 June 2001. Solang - Rohtang Pass.

The plan was that Raj and the girls would accompany us in his little white car up to the Rohtang Pass where we would part company. The girls would have a modest altitude record (13,050 ft) in their resume and could return to Delhi contented while we would get down to the business of descending to Lahul and driving on to Leh.

A cold rain began to fall as we climbed past Marhi towards the pass. The road was pockmarked with potholes, but this did not deter the hundreds of vehicles heading upwards. We soon passed little stalls offering warm hats, jackets and boots for sale and for hire to the thousands of tourists determined to reach the pass. As we neared the top, a section of the road had an impressive snow bank as a white bulwark which stretched for a couple of hundred yards. Some entrepreneural soul had seized the opportunity to carve out a pair of throne-like recesses in the snow and offered these seats briefly for a fee to the hundreds of freshly married couples who regularly make Manali their honeymoon destination every year. He was doing brisk business as the line up of cars along this stretch attested, delaying us further.

Eventually we reached the top of the pass and I was shocked at the transformation I saw from 16 years earlier when I had passed that way. In August 1985, the pass was a desolate place with wind and rain as we crossed it in a public bus (see http://taccidental.blogspot.ca/2012/06/lion-peak-seed-is-sown.html), there was no one in sight, and the bus driver had stopped expressly at our request so we could take a few pictures.

Now, it resembled a mini Kumbh Mela, with hundreds of people milling around and a chain of tea shops and small eateries and vendors roasting corn on small portable coal grills and "guides" soliciting the tourists. There were ponies available for hire for those who did not wish to walk to what the guides called "Snow Point". Everyone seemed to be heading for  Snow Point! Though it was highly amusing, I could understand the underlying desire of a tourist from the plains who had never set eyes on snow to want to experience it at first hand and have a tale to tell the folks back home. If you consider that India has a population of over a billion people, and that perhaps more than 98% of that number live in places which will never see snow until the next Ice Age, you can begin to comprehend the mania that we were caught up in! Since Sushma, Cheryl and Rosalyn also belonged to the 98%, we joined the trot to Snow Point!

We walked and we walked and we walked and there was no sign of any snow anywhere. The sleet and the wind stung our faces like little insects while our boots squelched on ground that was a sea of mud. We stopped someone who was on his way back. "How much further is it to Snow Point?" we asked him. He laughed derisively and said,"What a load of bullshit this is! There is a patch of old snow which looks more brown than white and it will take you half an hour to get there! These guides are taking everyone for a ride...."

By this time, Sushma was so cold that she had ceased to talk - this was serious, because under normal circumstances you had to gag her if you wanted her to shut up! Though she lives in Delhi, she has always considered the winters a challenge. More importantly, the futile trek towards Snow Point was eating into the driving time for the Ladakh Quartet. Sensibly, we decided to turn around and headed straight for a tea shop where we warmed up with a farewell round of chai.

L to R : Aloke, Ravi, Franklyn, Franco, Rosalyn, Sushma, Cheryl, Raj

We wished Raj and the girls a safe trip back to Delhi, fastened our after-market seat belts, turned on the cassette player so that Dire Straits belting out Sultans of Swing drowned out the buzz of the multitudes. I pointed the Gypsy in the direction of Lahul, engaged the gears, and cruised down the empty north side of the pass. We descended out from the clouds and into glorious sunshine. I took it as a good omen for The Mother of All Drives.

to be continued....