13th – Bikers gone wild

Waking up early we had a quick breakfast before being picked up at 0730 to go to the Khardung La pass for the day’s planned activities. As Leh is at around 3500m and our destination was at 5600m it meant that we would be getting some pretty aggressive acclimatization done.

Starting the ascent we came onto a new asphalted road, still having that fresh smell of asphalt. The road was quite narrow at times with barely room for two small cars to pass each other. Combine this with sharp turns (and plenty of hairpin bends along the cliff side) you had very low visibility on several of the stretches during the drive. Not being able to see very far on a narrow road with a fall on one side and cliffs on the other a drive down on bike could potentially become quite exciting.

After having ascended about half way we reached a military checkpoint, and from there on after the road turned into gravel, albeit the width of the road increased slightly.

Reaching the top Bo’s GPS said we were at 5250m, not the announced 5600m. The following was found on Wikipedia after coming home:

The 5,359 m (17,582 ft) elevation measure was taken from a modern GPS survey by a team of researchers.

And

Khardung La is widely, but incorrectly, believed to be the highest vehicle-accessible pass in the world. A well-graded Indian military road […] reaches 5,610 metres (18,406 ft) 250 meters west of the 5,545 metres (18,192 ft) Mana Pass on the India - Tibet border. […] There are also higher motorable passes at Suge La, west of Lhasa, 5,430 m (17,815 feet), and Semo La 5,565 m (18,258 feet), between Raka and Coqen in Central Tibet. […] Vehicles have been driven over the 5,582 metres (18,314 ft) Marsimik La, in the Indian Karakoram to the north-east of Khardung La, but it is debatable whether this pass should be considered to be motorable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khardung_la

Walking around and taking in the views we soon fond our bikes which were then distributed among us and soon we were on our way down. It is to be said that I have not had much experience in cycling in rough terrain (as in: none) and with the blind spots at the sharp turns I took it slow. It didn’t feel very slow, but it didn’t take long for me to end up in the back. No worries – no pressure and it felt nice enjoying the views bumbling down the gravel road. The three cars that brought us up split up in two teams; one went into the front and the two others stayed behind making sure that all made it down. Most in the group seemed to have done similar things before, considering the speed they went ahead. Now and then we were met by others in the group who had turned around and driven up to keep tabs on us in the back and a quick chat before turning around and racing back to the font.

Despite my lack of speed I realized I hadn’t been far behind when we had a short break at the check point. I could feel my palms getting quite sore from all the bumping around on the road. Continuing after the checkpoint and onto the paved road the speeds naturally increased, still with me in the back trying to keep up, but still a bit from the highest recorded speed that day; 62-ish km/h. But despite the constant blind spots around some of the bends I ended up feeling more relaxed – probably because of getting into the rhythm but also because there was no bumping around anymore. The road might have been narrow, but it was smooth!

We were back at the hotel around lunch, slightly dusty and polluted by the constant black smoke that had been bellowing out from the large trucks on the road, but very happy overall. My right hand/wrist was pretty sore, and I wonder when it will pass.

Lunch was had and the planned trip to the Kalachakra was approaching. Unfortunately we were informed the schedule for the afternoon had been moved to the morning in an attempt to avoid the worst heat of the day. Bummer, no Dalai Lama for us. The afternoon was therefore spent on relaxing and walking in Leh to let people get the last things needed before leaving tomorrow.

In the evening we had a short briefing on the following week where the actual trek/climb starts. At dinner we found out that one of the girls in the group had fallen ill, but it seems as if it will be an easy day tomorrow, and as it is road all the way to camp (5-ish hours walk down to 3200m) she will be able to get a lift all the way if necessary. Poor girl, let’s hope she gets better fast!

Not all places are equally hospitable.

A lot of signs are standing around promoting the non-truth. But apart from that the views are not bad. At all.