Independence Day Trip to Dalhousie, Chamba and Sach Pass
Day 3, 17th August 2008: Satrundi - Sach Pass (when every thing goes wrong…) (Part-1)
Continued from the previous page...
Night at “Satrundi Hotel” was something I would never forget, even though I would love to. Saying it was uncomfortable would be an understatement. Throughout the night, rain was continuously going on and temperature must have dropped to around or below 0 degree Celsius.
How do I know this?
Because I barely slept for an hour and a half, rest of the time was spent adjusting myself in our so called bed to make it less painful on my back and fighting with Varun for the quilt and shivering, because the cold winds were continuously hammering my back and feet.
I was waiting impatiently for the night to turn into day, so I could get up and start riding, because I knew that riding on world’s roughest terrain would be more comforting than sleeping here. With the first ray of light the rains stopped and I got out of the bed and went out to stretch myself and walk a little. Soon Varun was up as well and so were rest of the occupants of the tent. Got my camera out and clicked a few photographs of Satrundi and the lovely scenery around us:
Came back into the hotel tent and washed my face and brushed teeth using the ice cold water being drawn from a stream nearby. Chatted again with the IRB personals over tea and breakfast, after which it was time to mount our luggage on our motorcycles and start the journey. But before that, it was time to click the photograph of our host, without whom we would have had to spend the night out in the open.
Gore, owner of the Hotel at Satrundi
Got my bike warmed up and started the journey, there was a steep ascent in the beginning, with a mixture of loose rocks and mud, got half way up and got stuck. Rear wheel wasn’t getting any traction due to wet pile of cow dung directly under the rear wheel and same was true for the front! It was one of those few moments when the FKR wasn’t able to find any traction and was spinning wildly. Gore and his helper came to my rescue and with me off, the three of us pushed the bike to the top.
Not the kind of start one needs when a challenging day lies ahead. Anyway I headed out, only to stop after a kilometer or so, after spotting this beautiful meadow.
Though not as worse as yesterday, the road condition were still quite bad and steep as well, which meant I had to continuously juggle between first and second gears and at few points, had to half clutch as well. I was also forced to take frequent breaks, not only for photography, but also to let the bike cool down a bit.
Finally I reached Sach Pass at 10:40AM, meaning the 12-13km stretch from Satrundi had taken a little over one and a half hours to complete! It was a moment of joy and triumph, having had to ride through some of the worst terrain in my life, I was obviously jubilant. Even more so after being told by police officers at Satrundi, that we were the first bikers this year to attempt Sach Pass on motorcycle, though couple of guys and a girl had arrived there earlier in the year on Enfields, but they had chosen to put them in a pickup at Tissa, to take it across Sach Pass.
I waited at Sach Pass for Varun to arrive and in the meanwhile, had a conversation with a lone PWD worker, who had earlier forgotten his blanket at Sach Pass and had come to retrieve it.
After around 10 minutes, Varun showed up as well.
After congratulating each other, we got busy with photography.
Varun doing justice to his BCMTouring id, Mountaintrekker.India
Life grows even in the most inhospitable of places:
Snow clad mountains at Sach Pass
After Varun came down, we ate chocolates to celebrate our triumph and then posed for this photograph:
With this type of road ahead of us and clouds moving in fast, it was time for us to head towards Killar.
When I got on my motorcycle, I saw Varun was repacking some of his stuff, just as I was about to get down, he told me to continue on and he would catch up with me.
Nodding, I started my ride towards Killar...