TheFreeBird
Day 9 | Pangong In Winter
After the thoroughly enjoyable 7 days on the chadar trek on the first buffer day I visited monasteries in Ladakh as a chilled out day. (If you missed out my chadar trek blog ,read it here . The most surreal nature you will ever see).Today my drive for adventure was back as i wanted to visit the frozen Pangong Tso. With only two of us remaining from the the original chadar trek team, it would have been costly to book an innova all by ourselves. I scourged the hotels to find few other like minded people to tour the frozen Pangong in Winter. Prima facie i thought after having seen the frozen Zanskar river seeing another frozen Pangong lake wont be that interesting. But i was proved wrong as never ever can you see such a vast stretch of a frozen lake. It was a frozen desert. A frozen delight.
Not only the lake but the route itself was equally picturesque with snow clad mountains & roads passing the third highest pass in the world, with skidding car tyres drifting the vehicle & occasionally getting stuck in snow. It was an adventurous & a beautiful experience.
With the team ready we got into the Innova and drove from the relatively warm lands of Leh city towards Pangong. We stopped at Karu check Post where we entered our details & also had our breakfast at a hotel nearby. Our Driver Phunchok said they had some good parathas. He was right. With our tummys full we moved towards the Changla Pass.
There was snowfall yesterday hence all the roads leading to Changla were covered with snow.
The Changla pass (5360 m) has a temple of Changla Baba which I think gives it the name. Its because of his almighty power the roads are safe to travel. Hence it is also called as the Mighty pass. You will also get free black tea over here at the third highest motorable pass of the world
Due to the extreme cold none of my friends were ready to get out of the vehicle. I felt i was acclimatised enough to this cold winter after Chadar trek. I came out to take an eyeful of the surroundings.
After seeking the blessings of Changla Baba we ventured towards Pangong Lake. The road continued to play hide and seek under a sheet of snow.
The vehicle continued to drift over the loose snow giving us goosebumps. The drivers skills were to be appreciated as small mistakes as such heights will definitely send the vehicle skidding to the ground. The daredevil driving continued till we safely reached the grounds.
After coming down from the heights we were blessed with the sight of this frozen river. Well Zanskar is not the only river which freezes during winter.
Why would chadar trek die?
This stream had well formed chadar but no one seemed to like the concept of having a trek here because it was running parallel to a road. There is a road being built parallel to the Zanksar river. Well anyone can connect the dots that when the parallel road would be completed it would take out all the adventure out of the chadar trek.
Back to the topic we crossed this frozen river over a newly built bridge by BRO.
Sooner all the snow started to disappear and the summer-y looks of Ladakh was back as we passed Tangste.
From here onwards started a search to spot mamoots. Few were visible at a distance away from my camera’s grasp. Could only spot few sheep.
As we moved ahead the nature took a real turn treating us to a super desert complete with cold sandy winds. Just before Pangong this scene was totally surreal.
It had taken us 5 hours to reach Pangong lake but it was totally worth it. From far off distance the huge expanse of frozen pangong lake seemed to go on and on and on.
We got down on the lake to get better angles of this beauty & some chilled moments.
There were barely any hotels open. Only hotel open was where a family stayed to cater throughout the year. Had some noodles and tea. Some more photography ensued. It was almost 1400hrs and our driver was getting pissed of at us for delaying so much. He was right from his point of view that the roads become too risky. But from our perspective we have travelled 5 hours to reach here. After we had enough of Pangong we decided to head back. We stopped only for pee break once after almost 2 hours. The sun was ready to go home.
This is where the real adventure begin. Since we passed this place in the morning the road had continued to accumulate snow. Phunchok told that the army clears the snow only till evening. We were now skidding in all the possible ways. Innova was moving at quite a slow pace. This turtle race continued till a point where the road was not visible at all. At this point every one was worried.
After a while the car got stuck in snow and showed no sign of getting out. Phunchok then got out and put on the snow nets over the tyres. I wondered why he didnt do that earlier to which I got a answer that this works on thick snow and if he had put it on thinner snow there were chances it would have broken down. There was a local we had picked up from Pangong to drop him further down the road. The local guy helped Phunchok put on the tyre nets. We were fortunate enough to have given him lift as we all were quite inefficient in the cold atmosphere. It felt like -20 degrees with cold winds.
After the nets were on we pushed the car out and it wriggled free after almost 20 minutes. From here we continued swiftly ahead. The vehicle did continue to sway at turns. After much efforts we reached Tangste where we dropped off the local. Thank god for him. We picked up another family going to Chemrey monastery.
We continued at brilliant pace till a point where the snow was alarmingly high. Car swayed in random directions but Phunchok somehow managed to keep the car on the road. It had been 3 hours from Pangong when I finally saw another vehicle. As we approached it I understood that it was standing still & waiting in queue behind another car. In front of this was an army bus which had got stuck in knee high snow.
If the bus with its huge ass tyres could not move there was no chance for an Innova or a Santro ahead of us to even think of attempting this snow track. We were stuck. Locals started to float stories on how the roads are cleared only during the day and not cleared after the evening. And how vehicles get stuck here for the cold night.
After 1 hour of being stuck
Stuck here for night ????
I had an early morning flight from Leh on the next day which had taken me back by 13K & i wanted to be on that flight no matter what. And I was stuck here behind the bus for more than an hour. The bus driver continued to try some new techniques but in vain.
Too make matters worse it started to snow. The army guys came out of the bus and tried to push the bus. It refused to budge.
After 2 hours of being stuck
It had started to get extremely cold & we were definitely not dressed for it. Even if we opened the doors for a second we all would be shivering to our core. Seeing no hope, it was at this time two of the army guys decided to walk towards changla baba to get some help. They had carried the satellite phone with them which received no network from this particular point. So much for technology.
They disappeared for an hour .
After 3 hours of being stuck
Finally after three hours I could hear the sounds of an earth mover. The flood light of the mover kept approaching us . Every dark cloud had a silver lining
It made way through heaps of snow. Some relief. Long live the army.
Having set free from this we started towards Leh. The track had become extremely slippery but somehow our driver maintained the vehicles traction. It was an adrenaline pumping event.
What did i learn?
I should definitely come back for another joy ride
Finally reached Leh almost at 2300hrs. Everything had closed down. The hotel guy woke up the chef to prepare some bland food. I devoured it. Hunger is the best sauce.
9 days of epic adventure had come to an end. Time to head back home to earn more money for future plans.
Packed the bag for tomorrows early morning flight to Mumbai.
Slept. Woke Up. Flew.I am the free bird.
Adios!
END OF Chadar Trip
PARTS: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
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Thanks a lot . Enjoyed reading both the chadar trek and the frozen Pangong.