We finally got back to Manali. The snows had arrived early, we could not kayak the Upper Indus due to there being no water. The put in at Mahe was just below the snow line! We even had to wait a few days for the passes to open!!
Nobby arrived, we hired our Royal Enfield Bullets and then waited for 4 days for the rain to stop!! When it finally did we headed off towards Spiti and the Rohtang Pass.
↑On the way up the the Rohtang Pass
↑With 4 days of rain the road was in a bad way!
Vultures waiting for the next accident and a free meal ticket!
A day out for the locals, free sleigh rides, yak riding and the odd bit of powder on some old school skinny skis!!
↑The conditions were proving to be testing!
↑It is not only pot holes, trucks, mud & snow we had to contend with but also Pashmina Goats too!!
We made it to Chatru in the Chandra Valley but we could not get any further due to the next pass into Spiti being closed so we headed towards Keylong and then into another valley and found a gem of a river!
With absolutely no tourists around we really did get the feel of getting off the beaten track!
↑What glimpses we got of this river made my mouth water.
Any ideas so far?
↑Che and Pablo
The road was unreal, what we did not know was that it was going to get even more interesting as the trip went on...
↑The river starts in Tandi and cuts a path towards Jammu & Kashmir and finally heads into Pakistan.
Still no ideas..?
It was first run by an old friend (Russell Kelly) who sadly cut short his life checking out rivers. Infact Russell put in the first descent from Tandi to Killar SOLO PILOT!
↑We were now heading away from the river and up the Sach Pass, the road is in the middle on the right hand side of the picture!!
We had heard rumours that the Pass was possible on a motorbike but we did not realise they were still building it!
↑Check out the road builders drilling holes into the rocks, next comes the dynamite and a new road starts to take shape
↑A few hours of work to build a road high in the Himalayas
It was an epic, the bikes were tested to their full and so were the riders!!
The views were well worth it though!
↑Nobby taking a break
↑The check post before the pass
↑We were getting close now
And finally we made it, unbelievable that our bikes and us could perform in such conditions
The views were unreal and we had a cheeky little road on the other side. Though we had a casualty...Nobby had managed to snap his bike frame in half on the way up.
We used a couple of kayak straps to hold it all together and then finally got to a welders where for 2 Euros we got it fixed (well for a couple of days).
The evening light on the mountain tops was fantastic.
↑Nobby looking the worst for wear after an epic 10 hour ride from Killar towards Chamba over the Sach Pass.
What an adventure, we waited for the rains to pass, had to change the route because of the snow, ended up in a valley that never sees tourists, crossed a pass that really was not passable, made up some time on tarmac to get to Macleod Ganj (where the Dalai Lama is based) and finally made it back to Manali for Nobby to catch his flight.
Plus we caught glimpses of one of the best rivers I have ever seen in the Himalayas, The Chenab!
Can this be topped, who knows but we will certainly give it a go!
We are now off to Rishikesh and some cleansing in the Ganges.
