In Batal we woke to a grey and cold day, pleased that we had crossed the pass the day previous. Eggs and roti, chai and another chai were needed before we faced the day ahead. We had been warned!
The first few km’s we bounced down the road alongside the Chandra river. We came to the first of several large areas of avalanche debris. The first was flat and a long way from the river so we pushed our bikes across, no problem. The sections of snow got progressively trickier in terms of their steepness and the consequences of slipping – straight into a very cold, fast flowing glacial river. Hmmm.. For the trickiest bits we double loaded it. Alan did two trips with the bikes and myself two trips with the panniers. We were pleased we had posted home some excess luggage from Kaza and were down to 3 small panniers each.
Finally we got thru that lot and just had to deal with an awful road surface for the next 24km. A bulldozer had been along a lot of the remaining road and cut it up making it trickier to ride. Because it was such a grey day we missed out on some great views but what we saw of this Chandra valley was pretty spectacular. Our stop for the night was Chatru and we pitched out tent in an unused dhaba and ate at the occupied one next door. The weather cleared late in the day revealing steep peaks and granite slabs.
We were very happy to have gotten thru the Kunzum and to be the first wheels this season!
Next day we were promised good roads but had a still had a mixed bag. The depth of some of the avalanche cones that we cycled through were up to 10 metres. We couldn’t believe the greenery of this valley – no longer the dry red slopes of the Spiti – we were travelling thru irradescent spring growth. We cycled through many flocks of goats and sheep heading (we presume) to their summer grazing fields. It was like we had changed countries.
We passed the turn-off to the Rhotang La which is the gateway to the popular tourist haunt of Manali but we were not at all interested in going there. We were now on the Manali – Leh highway and certainly nowhere near as remote as we had been. This road had only just been opened and there was a lot of traffic (relative to where we had been) – especially Indian men on motorbikes.
Our road was now butter smooth tarseal – with the odd washout and we were pleased to get to Keylong for a welcome rest and washing day. The last time I was here was after a long walk in the Indian Himalaya with Dave, a long 25 years ago.
