June 20th, 2022
Was up at 7:00 a.m. to get ready for the final adventure of the tour. Had breakfast and waited to hear what the plan was.
The weather was not too bad this morning, so the plan was to go ahead and head toward Pangong Lake as per the itinerary. Several people though decided they did not want to take the risk and were going to stay behind.
The Austrians had already left for the airport to head home, a few were going to just stay in Leh for the day, and a few more would ride with us to the top of Changla pass, but then come back to Leh instead of going on to the lake.
Only 4 of us were going to make the full trip. Jerry, Andy, Milos and myself, and of course the support staff.
We got on the road and fought through the crazy traffic in town for about an hour or so till we reached our fuel stop at the edge of town.
Once filled up, we hit the main road for a bit and then turned onto the Changla pass road.
Going up was not too bad, the road was in decent condition lower down, but higher up had several areas of construction that had torn things up a bit.
As usual I was soon left behind with the sweep rider to make my own way. Made it to the top without issue, though did put on my rain jacket and gloves half way up to stop the cold air from getting into my riding gear ventilation.
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| On the way up Changla |
At the top it was busy and the ground had a thin layer of snow and was wet, but not horrible or impassable. Got out the GPS to get a reading and it said 5380m/17650 feet.
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| At the pass |
We did the usual photos around the top and wanted to get moving, but Milos had wandered off to get some tea. So while we waited for him all the lined up cars suddenly were released and took off, so we were now behind a huge line of cars and trucks that took forever to get around.
About half way through that mess, an attempt to pass by a stationary military truck on a very muddy cliff edge slipped my back wheel and I went down hard next too and partially under that same truck. Only a few inches farther out and the bike would have gone over the edge.
The fall busted the hand guard on one side of the bike and for a few seconds I was actually stuck under the bike before I could maneuver my foot around and extract myself. As I was now partially under the very high sitting truck, I was worried if he started to move things would get bad!
I got up and slapped the side of the truck good and hard to hopefully draw attention to my condition, and then walked out in front of the bike and truck so the driver would see me.
At this point the sweep rider had parked and got off his bike and a motorist in a car heading up the mountain that was stuck in the other lane also got out to assist.
We got the bike back up on its wheels and rolled it out in front of the truck to get off the edge and out of the snowy mud. Thankfully the truck has left a good distance between it and the truck in front of it, so could move around well.
A military individual was now standing there as well, I guess checking to see if everything was good? I gave him the thumbs up that I was fine and nothing was amiss now.
Got back on the bike, started it up and everything seemed to be working. Continued on down the road and around the traffic and eventually got in front the the slow moving cars at the front of the line and able to move easier now and a bit quicker.
Rest of the route was bit easier now that the traffic mess was behind us, though did get stuck behind another very slow moving military convoy of large trucks for a bit and had to stop for a construction work area while they moved some equipment around on the road, but both of those only lasted a few minutes.
Had another technical water crossing today while stuck in the middle of the military convoy, but managed to get across without issue.
Finally reached our lunch point and was able to rest a bit and get some food. Took off the rain gear as it was warming up here and starting to get stuffy in the jacket. We waited there till the support truck caught up to us as they had been stuck in the traffic much longer.
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| Lunch stop |
Once back on the road the air was still a bit cool at speed, so maybe should have left my outer layer on, but decided to just deal with it instead of stopping and getting left behind even more.
Traffic became a bit more congested again as we turned off and moved down the road toward the lake.
Lots of taxi's, busses and bikes on the road, so several annoying moments, but still making good time overall.
Arrived near the lake and regrouped with the others, and then we all rode into the camp site area and found our specific swiss tents. This was a massive area built up of several campsites all with tents and support buildings, almost a small town you could say.
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| Campsite area: our tents off image to left |
Once we had gotten our tents assigned and dropped off some stuff we sat around for a bit, totally wore out. But we all wanted to go explore the shore a bit and get photos of the lake and surrounding areas.
So we got back on bikes, just minus some of the luggage and rode back down the big hill to the road we came in on. Milos and I sat at that the road for a bit waiting for Jerry and Andy, but for some reason they were not coming down, so we decided to head down the road a bit, but it ended soon after, so we waited there to see if they would catch up with us, assuming they had seen what direction we went. But after a few minutes no one came, so we decided to just keep going on our own.
We took a small dirt road next to the paved road up to a large levelled area and stopped for photos.
Then we continued on another small dirt track up the side of the hill. Milos had ridden ahead of me, so when I reached a spot where an even smaller road turned off, I stayed on the better road, which of course then dead ended at a camp site just around the corner.
I turned around and tried to head back down the road, now seeing Milos higher up the hill and knowing I needed to take that other road, but when I dropped off the level onto a bit of a steep incline (instead of going back 10 feet to get the road easily) I managed to tip the bike over when I lost momentum trying to turn. I just let it down softly and stepped aside.
I stepped around to lift it, but a guy in the campsite saw and had already run over to help me. Id probably been okay on my own, but always nice to have assistance in lifting a bike.
I got myself onto the correct road and rode up to meet Milos and we continued on with this road which was moving us higher up the hillside and eventually found a dirt trail that led up to the paved main road that ran along the entire lake shore.
Headed down that road with no real goal in mind when Milos saw a small dirt trail heading down and looked like it would get us pretty close to the shoreline.
Bounced down this road and it ended at a large parking area. We stopped and walked a good mile at least to the lake shore for some photos and to sit and relax a bit to the sounds of the water lapping at the shoreline.
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| Road down to shore |
After taking several photos and videos I headed back toward the bike as I was getting tired now and the light was starting to drop as the sun was beginning to set behind the surrounding peaks.
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| Looking down toward China |
Once on the main road I headed back toward our camp location. While on the way, Jerry and Andy passed me just before we reached a turn that would head down the hill on a dirt trail and come in behind our tents. This saved quite a bit of time over going to the main road back down to the turn off and then backtracking to the campsite.
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| Our tent for tonight |
Once back, I sat in the tent after unloading the bike and rested for about 30 minutes. I was sharing this tent with Andy tonight, and he had left to go over to the restaurant. I changed into the camp clothes and walked over to the restaurant to have some tea.
Spent the rest of the evening there talking with the riders and support crew about all kinds of things. We eventually were able to order up some food around 7:00 p.m. and then about 8:00 p.m. the main buffet dinner was served.
Had a fair meal, talked more and then Andy and I returned to the tent to get ready for a long overdue nights rest.
I put all my batteries on the charger and organized the gear some to make it easier to deal with in the morning and then decided to go ahead and stay up to write in the journal and Andy went to sleep.
We may try to get up around midnight to check out the stars outside, would be cool vista I think. Will be up again at 7:00 a.m. so we can be ready to leave around 8-8:30 a.m. Have to back track over the same route we used to get here, go back over Changla and back into Leh to the same hotel. We will stay there again and have our final dinner with the group.
Then we will sleep and in the morning the tour will be over, but not quite the trip yet, still a few adventures left before leaving India for home.
Good night.
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| Ride Route (156km/97 miles) |
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