An epic saga of motorcycling in Himalayas !!!
You must watch this teaser before we start
Motorcycling is a wild wave that has spread in this country like anything. Every year thousands of bikers venture out for expeditions. Many achieve difficult feats and many give up in the long run. 6 passionate bikers had something very wild in mind for quite some time but this task was almost impossible and many bikers won't event dare to try. They had been planning and 2018 became the year when they could combine their efforts and carry out this Herculean task.February-March this is the time when the entire Ladakh region is covered with a thick layer of snow and remains cut off from the rest of the country via road. All its famous places are not reachable by road. This team went on to achieve what many of us wouldn't event think of. They decided to set an example for adventure touring in Himalayas and created history by riding motorcycle on the treacherous roads of Ladakh in Winters when temperature goes down to -15-20 even in the day time.
Deepak Gupta an YouTuber who owns a YouTube channel Xtreme Moto Adventure is quite a favourite among Travel and Biking Vlogers and documents his travel on same along with his friends Pruthu Mehta, Akshay jain, Manish Dhall, Kushal Thakkar and Vijay Patel attempted such an adventurous expedition that will send chill down your spines. Taking a flight from Delhi to Leh and there on rented Royal Enfield Bikes from Leh. Records tumbled as they were the first group of bikers to reach Drass and Frozen Pangong Tso in extreme cold conditions.
Here's is an account of how they carried out this extreme ride.
Total Ride Distance Covered: Aprox 1400 km in winter ladakh.
1st leg - Leh Hanle Leh (5 motorcycles ) 1 Backup vehicle.
2nd leg - Leh Drass Leh ( 4 motorcycles ) 1 Backup vehicle.
3rd leg - Leh Pangong Leh ( 4 motorcycles ) 2 Backup vehicles.
Here's what these bikers told us about their experience.
On 24th February 2018 in the morning we landed in leh via morning flight and visited Ice Stupa which is located in Phyang village.
On 25th morning we started our ride to HANLE VILLAGE from Leh which is about 250 kms.It was a 10 hour nonstop journey with a temperature of average -8 degrees with lot of cross winds and lot off roads.On 26th February we visited the Hanle observatory and the Hanle monastery and some local site seeing.
Standing on frozen Indus river
On 27th February we started our ride back to leh in the same weather conditions. Next day we started riding towards Kargil it's about 220 kms from leh with crossed over 2 mountain high passes( 1. Fotula pass. 2. Namikla pass) with limited resources of food and human presence in route, things were getting difficult day by day as the climatic conditions were not favourable. With less oxygen due to higher altitude it getting difficult to ride but we still kept on riding and reached Kargil by evening.
On 1st March we started our ride toward DRASS which is 60 kms from Kargil enroute we also visited the Kargil/Drass War memorial and we were surprised to receive such a warm welcome from our Indian army in these tough conditions....there is this season everything is shut off with very limited resources. Then we started heading towards Drass amd from. Drass we rode in snow almost till matian village....couldn't ride further as the roads were not favourable.., so we had to return back to Drass which is the world's second coldest inhabitant place. We stayed back in Drass.
On 2nd March we started riding back to leh in the same weather conditions but it became a little more difficult coz of the heavy cross winds and with a temperature of an average -10 degree ; our hands and feets were literally frozen and was becoming difficult by evening as the temperature was dipping around -12 degrees and lack of oxygen was making the ride harder as we were reaching Leh.
3rd leg was the most toughest part of the entire trip.
On 3 rd march we started our journey from Leh to PANGONG LAKE. Where as we crossed the mighty CHANG LA pass which is known to b world's second highest motorable pass at an altitude of 17688 ft. We rode our bikes in thick snow till CHANGLA PASS . The condition of the weather was very volatile and harsh. We had to load our bikes on a camper because it was getting dark and the conditions were getting seriously dangerous to ride.When we reached the top, temperature was dipping to almost -20 degree making it very very difficult to load the bikes on the camper.We decided to take a night stay at Tangste and started again next morning for Pangong on our motorcycles.Luckily we got cozy homestay with heater in Tangste which was most needed at that time.
On 4th March we started our ride from TANGSTE VILLAGE to PANGONG LAKE. It was about a 48kms ride in lush snow and the PANGONG LAKE was totally frozen.Riding on frozen Pangong lake was the most thrilling experience we had on this trip. Reaching Pangong in extreme winter conditions is one of the biggest achievements of this ride.Conditions were really tough to ride back to Leh and we didn't want to take further risk. They collectively decided to load the bikes on camper and drive back to Leh. Almost one side of the stretch we were riding our motorcycles except 29 km from Changla to Tangste while going to Pangong lake.Loading our bikes on camper was a wise decision as we believe adventure should not come at the cost of your life and we know once you will face the actual situation you will surely change your mind. It needs lots of planning, courage and passion to jump into these kind of Xtreme adventures and most importantly your luck should favour you. Mother nature is the biggest driving force in such attempts and you are completely at its mercy. It looks easy in photographs but the real deal is something cannot be expressed in photographs and videos.But this experience was worth taking so many risks.
When you risk your life for such adventure. You are bound to fall but what matters is your attitude to complete the challenge. Most important factor was to combat the cold and High altitude wind as the temperature was almost -15 throughout our riding stretch.Hostile weather conditions and unsuitable roads throughout. Without proper planning and backup vehicle it was almost impossible to achieve such feat. Mr Shujit Ali and Thupston Tsweng helped them a lot with their effort as guide cum friends.. A big cheers for them and wishing good luck to their new venture Ladakh Bike Expeditions for a bright future.
One cannot measure the magnitude of this success with bone-chilling photographs and videos but ask any of these 6 motorcycle lovers they will share their bone chilling and deadly experience.
