Sarchu Plains to Pang
Dave Hill
Chester
The day started well with a brightness from the north. It had rained persistently on canvas in the night, but as normal light fluffy clouds now surrounded the high snow clad peaks. The sandy campsite was thankfully not that dusty now. Occasional clusters of rag-dressed Bihari road workers were strolling to their day's work place, in advance of hot, toxic tar fumes their air would be clean and fresh.
We breakfasted on porridge with all the usual additions, fruit, nuts honey, and then broke camp in an optimistic mood, feeling fit.
Ready ahead of the crowd as usual, I bade farewell and wheeled to the road. Today was a biggie - the infamous Gata Loops followed by two 5000m passes and I didn't want to waste time.
Within minutes the road approached a tell tale yellow Border Roads Organisation concrete sign "Gata Loops start. Altitude 4201m, 13,780 ft, 21 Loops". I was feeling good this morning, the air was fresh and cool. Even my water bottle water tasted refreshingly sweet. 3 litres of spring water would last me both passes.
The switchbacks began with the usual gentle grade, 2 completed in 5 minutes or so. A garish Tata truck cruised past - almost the first of the day, its driver raising a hand in greeting. 5 seconds later a percussive shock almost threw me from the bike and large fragments of rubber rained down either side of me. The tyre exploding on the passing truck made me think I had been shot at.
The driver, being pursued at 20kph by its typical convoy of truck/bus followers had nowhere to pull over for a 100m or so and within minutes I was twiddling by as its driver's mate had leapt out and placed a rock behind a rear wheel at the first opportunity, blocking the road. The truck was to pass me again in about an hour of climbing.
The loops themselves worked their way in loose, tortuous sweeps, clinging to a sun and wind blasted, ochre moonscape. The heavily stratified mountainsides here insanely tilted at 45 degrees, with seas of scree and debris between resistant outcrops. Nil vegetation, just rock and sand.
Soon the riverside campsite below came into view looking like a model railway set. Road surfaces were surprisingly smooth and soon I could see the to and fro of other riders weaving across the switchbacks, some seeming many hundreds of meters down the hill. An occasional knot of trucks passed but all was well.
First to the sign "Gata Loops End 4667m, I sat and waited for the next riders. Hiram had cadged a lift and waved from the cocoon of a Tata as he passed in comfort. He had suffered from the altitude in recent days.
The road flattened but only marginally, passing a wind sculpted rock arch but affording dramatic views of the old mule track clinging to the adjacent hillside - this would have been the original line of the route before military needs dictated building the Loops for the trucks and tankers that now labour up and down the Manali to Leh Highway.
Ahead (and up) was a small blockage - every now and again convoys travelling in opposite directions would meet on a tight corner and a log jam formed as shouts and tentative waves from drivers' mates allowed vehicles to pass often with just an inch between lorries and a tumble down the mountainside. Idle travellers here had been harvesting the wild rhubarb - we appreciated the flowers rather than pick any for food.
Late morning, high altitude and scorching sun meant covering up and plastering with factor 30. The climb persisted to the horizon under ultramarine skies, sun blasted ochre sand all around until the top of Nekeela La where a small contingent of the slower riders had assembled. I tried to look good on the last 50m by pushing hard, only to reach the col, drop my head onto the barbag and try to catch my breath. 2 minutes later, with heart rate almost back to rest I could dismount and survey the tops, before a summit photo. The trouble was, this was only a false summit followed by cruel 300-400m drop before a second climb to the next col, slightly higher at 5060m.
The drop was taken reluctantly and I joined Simon in misery at the dry river bed to eat our rock hard chapattis with processed cheese and some cashew nut biscuits, gulp down some iodine tasting water, then slog up the next stretch. I think it must have taken an hour to plod, sometimes labouring with breath, other times brains boiling in the heat, fighting off altitude headache and dehydration, each turn of the crank needing full mental commitment. There were no passing vehicles to help and both Simon and I walked, cycled, then walked to our visible target horizon in sheer exhaustion. An unhelpful roadside sign stated "Drive, Don't fly"!
We had summitted the Lachlung La. It was cold here, surrounded by snow iced peaks the first pass seemed only a short distance away - almost so you could reach out and touch it but every ounce of strength had been needed to get here.
The light was beginning to fade now so we launched down the rough way over the col. First the road followed a leaping mountain stream on a shallow plain. Within 3 km it entered the confines of a gorge where eerily eroded sandstone shapes loomed finger-like above, dropping deeper and deeper to the murky canyon. The road dissolved into the floor of the now torrential river at a very wet ford at least a foot deep - adding cold wet feet to our exhaustion woes.
Huge pinnacles jostling the flanks, we turned a corner and stopped, gobsmacked. Such a panorama - a thin ribbon of road plummeting hundreds of feet below on our right, a cornice of road cut through the sheer cliffs with Matchbox trucks negotiating tight bends, a rock arch, weird banks of brown, black and red sediments, and a Bailey Bridge crossing the raging torrent once more. The backdrop was of sheer brown cliffs many thousands of feet high. This is the area of the famous Pang Towers. A solitary tourist jeep edged past us gingerly, its occupants looked on at us in pity rather than admiration.
10 km down further, on emerging from a painter's palette of greys, blacks, browns of sand and mud, we turned the corner in twilight to cross a steel sheet layered bridge to enter the faeces strewn sanctuary of Pang where a damp parachute tent dhaba (café) awaited us.
Cass was there to welcome us. On dismounting, I shook our leader by the hand, slapping him heartily on the back. "Superb, Cass. It's the worse ride and the best ride I've ever done"!