[katoom]

Myself and friend Suraj did a short ride to the Himachal in early March.
Straying away from the usual practice of transporting our own bikes to Delhi, this time we decided to rent them out since the duration of the ride was just about 9 days and the logistics wasn't worth the pain.

Well, a mammoth task is now complete. More than 100 hours, listening to over 150 odd songs, cutting and joining 100+ video clips and finally somewhat happy with the result.
This ride means a lot and it is the dawn of a new world amidst hopelessness.
Hope you all enjoy the watch

Cheers!

PS: Please use headphones or good speakers and switch on to HD mode!

https://youtu.be/BdWa73UX5rI

[Tushar]

Light video of two light bikes with some light music. Exactly the pick me up you need on a Wednesday afternoon. Thanks for capturing the trip on your camera.

Care to shed some more light on how Omi Bhai helped you guys out? I sense a good story there.

[katoom]

Originally Posted by Tushar

Light video of two light bikes with some light music. Exactly the pick me up you need on a Wednesday afternoon. Thanks for capturing the trip on your camera.

Care to shed some more light on how Omi Bhai helped you guys out? I sense a good story there.

Thank you Tushar

Well, there is certainly a big story - en route Parashar Lake, we had another 8 kms to the top and that's when snow showed up on the road. We did manage to ride through it for a couple of kilometers until I revved up through a hairpin curve and almost slid off with a skid due to about half a foot of snow. This part is in video as well, when I push Suraj's bike up the hair pin. So from this point, we rode up for another kilometer and I got completely stuck in snow. The Impulse though had great tires, was grossly under powered to plow through which meant any attempts further would just fry the clutch.

We then took what could be called as an insane decision to park the bikes in the middle of nowhere, dump the excess luggage inside the deserted, door-less house and trek the rest of the six kilometers.
It was almost 6.00pm when we started the snow walk, each of us carrying tank bags weighing around 6-7 kgs, I had another tank bag with warm clothing along with helmets.

I had no clue in the world if I could do it because though I do some cardio, the smoker's lungs would show up sometime! Nevertheless, using the campers head lamp Suraj had, we walked and walked and walked on the snow for 2.5 hours. By the first hour of walk, both of our shoes had gotten completely wet and the freezing ice water had started numbing our feet.

There was no way of pinpointing the guest house since everything was snowed out and the caretaker, earlier over the phone call said that the guest house wasn't exactly next to the road. Now Suraj's phone battery almost dead and mine didn't have network coverage.

Two hours into the snow walk, I miraculously felt energetic while the athletic and fit Suraj felt exhausted. God know's how that happened!
By this time, every 200 meter break we took to gasp for breath due to the walk on the one foot odd snow made us realize that our feet was dangerously close to getting frost bite. No sensation whatsoever. The night had crazy wind as well. But we just had to walk, even though we did not know how far and if at all we could find the guest house.

Finally at 9PM, we saw a torch light being flashed at us from a distance of 200 meters ahead of us. I really cannot explain that moment of joy, relief and the thought that we will live to die another day. It was indeed that close a call!

As Omi had said, the guest house was actually about 50 meters below ground level, next to the road. We hurried off into the house, dumped the luggage and I removed the shoes in about 3 minutes - it was so difficult to undo the lace and pull the shoes out.

For the next 20 mins, I kept my feet almost literally inside the fire place and only then that there was some sensation back in them.

So, in short, we could probably have been in serious trouble that night.
Omi bhai then cooked a great dinner for us using candle light since a snow storm had cut off the power lines a couple of days earlier.

That's about the gentleman Omi, god bless!
Words fail to portray the true image or the gravity of that night but this's my attempt

[Tushar]

Originally Posted by katoom

Thank you Tushar

We then took what could be called as an insane decision to park the bikes in the middle of nowhere, dump the excess luggage inside the deserted, door-less house and trek the rest of the six kilometers.
It was almost 6.00pm when we started the snow walk, each of us carrying tank bags weighing around 6-7 kgs, I had another tank bag with warm clothing along with helmets.

The oxygen levels must have been low up there because that is a crazy decision! Glad to know you guys got a good memory and a good story out of the whole thing.