Aut to Jalori Pass Cycling Trip - Part I

All first times are special like a first love, first job, first salary, and first bike and first whatever …

My first Himalayan experience has been extremely special as well. Himalayas have been a benevolent teacher to me forgiving my many numerous Himalayan blunders.

It was in Apr 2012 that I experienced Himalayas for the first time in an Yhai’s cycling trip in Himachal Pradesh - from Aut to Jalori Pass. But it wasn’t the first time I was in Himalayas. I’d been there twice before on hop on and hop off family trips to Kashmir and Himachal, but being there and experiencing it are two different things.  At that time, I had been training hard for a mountaineering course with one hour of aerobics and one hour of gym every day for 6/7 days a week for months together. I had also trekked across the Western and Eastern Ghats covering Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. I was to go to Darjeeling for my mountaineering course then, but due to some constraints at work I renegotiated a compensatory vacation to Himachal for delaying my mountaineering training by a few batches. Due to my rigorous training, I was super confident that cycling in the Ghat roads of Himalayas would be a cinch. The only knots in my stomach were that I was travelling alone up north to a place I didn’t know the place, the language, or a single soul around. And it also turned out that I was the only girl in my batch.  Life is weird. It turned out that all things I was afraid of turned out to be great and all things I was super confident about bombed.

I had just forgotten a few minor details like I hadn’t cycled in ages, esp never in the mountains and that Himachal Pradesh happens to be at a slightly higher altitude than Chennai at sea level where I had done all my training and had spent most of my life.

The Cycling Trail of Aut - Jalori Pass

I was clueless about the effects of high altitude on a person. The Base camp was at 4000 ft in a small town called Aut. Even at that altitude I had a slight head ache, first sign of altitude sickness. I dismissed it as due to the incessant travelling in the 24 hrs + before I got there. Around the campfire (which in YHAI has no fire, only a discussion in the tent with a cup of hot drink) tales of mountain sickness including that of hallucinations were shared. It never occurred to me even once any of that could happen to me; I had the usual ‘those are for others to worry about’ attitude.

Our group had two Ex- IIT’ians – Rahul and Atul, three guys who had just graduated from XLRI, Apoorv, his friends Mandarr and Manyank, and Parth and his uncle Hitesh, and ofcourse the unmissable me J

The Cycling Team set to go...

Being the only girl in a small group has its own advantages. You are the apple of everyone’s eye and most people never lose sight of you and are always happy to help.  To begin with I borrowed a rain coat from the camp after hearing tales of torrent train from participants who were back.  My super confidence of ‘It doesn’t rain when I trek, cos I don’t like it that way’ was slightly shaken.  My lack of preparation had no end. On a late after thought together with sheer stupidity I had left my shoes behind thinking I had always trekked with a floater; I’ll do the same this time around too. I didn’t have a good warm sweater thinking my woolen pullover could do the magic since I thought how cold can a place be in mid may… the wind chill temperature of Shimla (cos that was the one city I happened to remember in HP then) showed 24 degrees Celsius and that’s not much different from the office AC where we often wear sleeveless. 

In the acclimatisation Trek

This stupidity sent me on a shopping spree on the reporting day and the day of acclimatization. I bought a really sturdy shoe in a local shoe shop for 600 bucks in spite of the person telling us that they make only shoes for men. We thought it was a steal then.  But in actuality it looks rugged but hurts my leg, there is no way that is going to let me do the run in PT which was probably the only time I really needed the shoe.  I also bought a nice sweater in a local shop. Aut is a small town with absolutely no shops for tourist and the only shops are those on market used by localities. At least that gave me the feeling it’s a bargain and I’m not being robbed for my inadequate prep as one normally is in a touristy spot.

The acclimatization involved climbing a nearby hill with two blankets in the rucksack and a bottle filled with water. A guide was assigned to us. The co-leader Apoorv was asked to stay in the lead with the guide while Rahul the group lead was to be the last man and ensure no one gets left out. Everyone sincerely attempted to talk in English, as they probably couldn’t bear to hear me talk in Hindi. Parth and his uncle, Hitesh, still generously gave me the opportunity to murder Hindi. Most times I was clueless as to whether they were talking in Hindi or Guajarati.

With the cute local kids..

Rahul, Hitesh bhai and I got lost and found ourselves in the middle of a beautiful village where we got around talking to a woman who was tilling her fields.  I found the conversation quite interesting and was taken back when the lady said she had lived all her life in mountains and has never seen plains in her life.  We thanked them for the conversation and water and found our way inquiring the villagers since we knew the destination point.  I was furious to know that we were to carry only one blanket while I was carrying two and that Hitesh bhai wasn’t carrying any blanket at all in his ruck sack :( 

To be contd...