For starters, it was an awesome introduction to a latent passion (so far limited to ogling at Tbhp excursion threads) and cursing my luck at the lack of such options in Ahmedabad.
One fine day, I found Kunal and Tejas bring up the idea of AKC/EXAMM and I remember mailing Tejas of happily (and lazily) booking myself as a passenger. I clearly remember Tejas mentioning that guys were driving down from much farther than I would have to and I guess I took the hint and decided that this roadtrip (a total of 1600 kms) had to happen! Decision taken. Now the details. Notified my boss about a non-negotiable leave period and then went about fussing over my rather stock 540. At the cost of a lot of weekends, threads, queries and a super-ticked off fiance, I was finally all set to take the road trip!!
The road trip was great and is a separate topic. Thursday night around 12 we reached Lonavla and once the night stay place was found, we went looking for food and there was only one place open. Now I am a guy who stares wide eyed at every 4x4 that passes by as long as its visible. Having a chai and smoke, I see 3 jeeps pass by. Arka, Patrick and Ventak step out and I meet Arka, someone I knew as a FB friend till then! We get talking and its slowly dawning on me that my first OTR is finally happening. We crash by 3:30 and are up by 6:30 and raring to go!
We reach the meeting point and what a sight! Have never seen so many beauties parked in such proximity before. Ogle time begins and goes on till we are ready to go!
Obstacle 1:
Am a bundle of nerves. Never taken my jeep into something even half as crazy before and I see a lot of vehicles struggling. "This is it, Am just going to go back on the road and start my first OTR from the next obstacle". That's where Arka expressed a lot of confidence in the 540 being able to do this obstacle! So in Mr. Branson's words "Screw it, let's do it!" and I go into the obstacle and voila! Next thing I realize is I am stuck! And to top it all I don't manage going back in a controlled fashion so Bam goes my rear bumper. Now that there was no way out but to climb it, I started putting together all the awesome advice I was getting from Arka, Vinay and the likes and I finally make it in my Nth try. My first obstacle in a stock 540 with arguably skinhead tyres and I made it!
Obstacle 2:
Fairly simple and we go through it in a breeze, brimming with confidence.
Obstacle 3:
So we reach the famous descent and all the confidence gained so far is gone. While it seemed very exciting, I wasn't sure I'd be able to do it on my own so rather than taking the plunge myself, I asked Sharath aka Samurai to drive the 540 down. It was quite an experience with us gaining momentum with time and eventually sliding down and finally sliding down sideways! Thankfully, the slide was countered by steering control and we reached the foothill. I think the jury's still out on whether it was a 1-L or a 2-L descent. Video posted on page 1 of this thread! After this leg-raising descent, climbing that creek was another task! With the 540 screaming its lungs out it finally managed to do that too!
Obstacle 4: This was dicey as we had to cross a slightly sideway slope with a 20 ft drop into a stream on the right. The Thar had already gone and made another way but we all decided that its poor lookalike and country cousin (my black 540) should take the original route. So with a light foot on the accelerator and a jeep slowly sliding towards the drop, Patrick, Arka and Vinod helped me cross this one!
Rest was easy and people were having a blast before a delicious lunch awaited us! A memorable thing there was Patrick guiding his son through the water. I was very impressed with the way Patrick's son drove the jeep through a few places!
By now, I was seriously amazed with the kind of abuse this vehicle can take. The respect for the 540 had gone up a million times!
Lunch was at a beautiful spot and totally loved the location and promised to come back someday!
Post lunch, I think a few of us ended up spending a lot of time crossing that incline. Waited for more than an hour for some vehicles who didn't stop trying and finally we decided to avoid it and take the "scenic route" to catch up with the rest. This is when Vinay walks up with Arka behind him saying I should take the incline. Had seen a lot of vehicles with much better tyres struggle and frankly wasn't sure if we had make it. Vinay takes over the jeep and in our 2nd try we have crossed it. Can't recall but i think it was 1-H or 2-H. Respect goes up a million times more!
After that we got lost and finally caught up with a few other jeeps and suddenly we realised that it was just 1 Mahindra Recovery Marshal, Venkat's CJ and us left with failing light to catch up with the rest of the gang. We all got a bit tense as we really didn't know the way around and went about executing all the obstacles (especially that steep descent) in a hurried fashion without really treating them as self-inflicted OTR style obstacles and instead treated them as obstacles on the path of survival
Finally we catch up!
There was a very interesting S-curve slippery ascent which was just almost taken in 2-L but I guess the tyres acted up and right when it reached the top it started slipping. The Mahindra guys were pretty prompt in connecting the winch and before the winch could be used, thanks to the winch giving some directional control to the Jeep, we made it to the top!
A few obstacles later we were finally at the hotel! Glad to have gone through everything while getting to know some awesome people with a common passion!
For a "newbie", it was really nice to have people like Arka, Vinay, Vinod and Sharath guiding me all the way. Sometimes encouraging, sometimes challenging and sometimes showing me how to do it! Thanks a lot guys
Mucho appreciato!!
They say you never forget your first time and its so true! Will cherish the experience and look forward to seeing so many of you guys again in random places around the country!
Cheers,
Adi
P.S. @Patrick, will surely have M/T tyres next year! Though I still think the current set didn't do bad at all!