[travelling owl]

This is my first travelogue, hopefully it has come out well. Please feel free to give feedback and suggestions on improvements.

We did a Darjeeling and Sikkim road trip in the month of March 2021, this travelogue is part of it. Another travelogue will be shared on that complete trip, for now I will focus this travelogue on Sandkphu adventure.
It all started on Valentine's day. Normal way of celebrating valentines day -> take your spouse/gf/bf for a candle light dinner or gift, etc. JEEPers way of celebrating -> take your JEEP on a offroad trail with 50+ JEEPers and form a heart with your JEEP.
Here is a video of that trail

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGttCWJ66p0

Couple of JEEPers were discussing about their plan of going to Sandakphu in March and we got interested and wanted to join them. As usual next step is joining a whatsapp group which had some 20 people in it. Frankly spoken Sandakphu was never in my mind, glad that it happened, one of our most memorable drives. Everything was getting planned and next usual step started. People dropping out, due to issues with leaves and pandemic, fair enough. Finally 4 JEEPers were confirmed and we were one of them.

After driving through 9 states and clocking 2800kms on the odo, we reached Siliguri, the first point for all 4 Jeeps to gather. Had our first lunch together at this amazing place called as Timboor which had recently opened up.


After filling our tummies to chicken and veg thalis, we started our ride towards Manebhanjyang. Manebhanjyang is full of dorms and homestays, typically for trekkers who start from here for trekking Sandakphu. Checked into a decent hotel, and everyone started getting frozen (-5 degC, Bangalore those days was around 25 deg C, a drastic temperature difference!). We decided to start at 8am sharp and went to bed. Morning everyone was super exited and quickly had our breakfast.



Sandakphu; which means `height of poison plant´, got its name due to vastly grown poisonous aconite plants in the region. Apart from being home to one of the most poisonous plants on earth, Sandakphu is also well known to offer mistic view of 4 of the 5 highest peaks in the world - Everest, Kangchenjunga, Lhotse and Makalu.


Early morning vibes @ Manebhanjyang

First thing we had to do was organise passes for our Jeeps, got to know that they don’t allow 4X2. So 2 Jeeps were not permitted and rest 2 could go. The other JEEP didn’t want to do it, so it was finally my Jeep that was going to Sandakphu. Rest 6 members in the group booked a Land Rover and we 3 (me, brother and wife) would take our Jeep. Local Land Rovers don’t allow anyone else to go, since it reduces their income, in our case since we booked a Land Rover, they allowed us. Paid 1000 for the entry pass and started out journey!


Booking counter to book LR and also to get pass for our private vehicles.


Our destination, just 31kms away from us!

It was going to be a 31km drive which would take roughly 4-6 hrs for our cars, Land Rover guys can do this in around 2-3 hrs depending on traffic. Yes, there is hell lot of traffic on the way to Sandakphu, lot of vehicles (LRs and Boleros) and to make things worse, at most of the places there is just enough space for 1 vehicle to pass. Please be advised, this terrain is not for regular 4X2, even for soft offroaders like Jeep Compass it is difficult if you don’t have people around you to help navigate and support. This 31km drive taught me things about my car which I didn’t know even after driving it for 20000kms!
While we bought passes to Sandakphu, lot of Land Rover guys came to us and tried discouraging us from doing it, told us scary stories of cars getting stuck, breaking down on the way and what not! We JEEPers were determined to do it and believed in our machine and decided to take it. Our Land Rover driver was very helpful, he said he will support us in scaling it but he was apprehensive of this vehicle crossing Gairibas.

So we started the journey, the first few kms was full of steep climb and crazy curves. Good thing was it was paved and also the tarmac had good grip. This stretch kind of warms you up for what is going come up next.


Misty(our Jeep), Jeep Gang and Upper Chitrey!

Didn’t spend lot of time here, basically our Land Rover driver Sanjay had stopped at Chitrey to ask if I am still comfortable driving the vehicle or if I had changed my mind. After getting my feedback, we started moving on. Our next stop was supposed to be at Meghma Monastery, the road from Chitrey to Meghma is full of cement road and is well laid.


Me @ Meghma Monastery with my Misty in the background

After taking some pictures at Meghma Monastery, we started towards Gairibas. Meghma Monastery to Gairibas is again cement road but is quite steep. I think this is where we climb majority of the ascent. The roads are narrow and steep, we were praying all the time that we don’t get any vehicle on the opposite side. Stopping here would be a nightmare, at some places I felt the hill ascent was around 45 deg! Finally 3hrs after we started from Manebhajyang, we reached Gairibas. The real fun would start from here, post Gairibas there is absolutely no roads at all. Its full of boulders, sand, mud, slush, everything that posts a challenge for a soft offroader. Just about a km away from Gairibas, I started getting stuck. The road was full of boulders and my car was getting stuck. Frankly spoken, I am an amateur at off-roading, have done couple of trails with BJC (Bangalore JEEP Club) but nothing that can challenge me and the machine. Just when I was stuck, 3-4 Land Rovers gathered and started shouting at me, lost all my confidence here. Started burning clutch, this is when a Co-JEEPer Prasad came to my rescue. He took the driver seat and everything started moving again! After lot of pushing, navigating around boulders and huge rocks, we reached Kalipokhari. This i think took around 2 hrs, we were completely busy in driving, couldnt take lot of pictures/videos.


@Kalipohari, was already starting to get dark here.

Reaching Kalipokhari is one hell of milestone, but from Kalipokhari to Sandakphu is next level. Since it had already started to get dark and cold, the slush on the road was starting to get frozen. This makes things way worse, mix of frozen ice, slush and boulders is what you never want to experience, especially when you are on highway tyres! During this whole stretch from Garibas, for every 45mins to an hour drive, we used to stop for 15mins for clutch and engine to cool down. We noticed that the engine power was getting derated at higher temperatures, so cooling the engine for 15mins helped a lot. Furthermore, natural Air Con (was around 10 deg C outside) around us helped to cool the clutch and engine faster.


The crew(my brother missing in the picture, since he was clicking it), halted for engine to cool down.

The last 2 kms before Sandakphu is completely steep, and full of loose sand, mud and large boulders. The size of boulders tends to increase as you near Sandakphu. There is hardly any grip here, to make things worse, the road is narrowest here.

This is the start of the last 2kms before Sandakphu. Notice the ascent and the width of the road. Our Land Rover broke down here, the clutch apparently had some issues. Some other LR helped our co-Jeepers reach Sandakphu. Sanjay arranged for some tools and got his machine ready in an hour, its so amazing how much these guys know about their machine. They lack proper technical education but can repair the vehicle on top of a mountain with minimum tools and spares! They are literally born with LR’s around them, Sanjay had started driving LR when he was 16.


Picture of our Jeep clicked by fellow traveller from top of the mountain!

At 5pm, we reached Sandakphu, had started snowing at Sandakphu. Things would have gotten worse if we had reached half an hour late, fresh snow melts and turns black ice in the evening. All other LR’s which had reached few hours ago were shocked seeing our vehicle make it to the top.


Jeep with the gang @ Sandakphu

This is the first Jeep Compass that has scaled Sandakphu. A TrailHawk has done it in the past, but that has higher GC and better low-end torque compared to regular Compass. This was possible only because of co-Jeepers, they helped and supported me throughtout the journey without which this wouldnt have been possible. This is how Jeep community works, we stand and support each other!


Missus was super happy about reaching Sandakphu..!! This is her first time in Himalayas Cant think of any better place to get introduced to Himalayas than Sandakphu

We were super hungry, since we had not eaten anything after our breakfast, all the stress during the journey had drained our energy levels. Had some hot thukpa and chai. Had dinner after sometime chilling with trekkers and dancing to music and finally went to bed after warming up


Snow from the previous night had covered our Jeep completely!

Woke up at 4am to watch sunrise and sleeping Buddha. Weather was nice to us, very less fog but was quite freezing. It was still snowing, all the efforts of reaching Sandakphu and bearing the cold weather paid off. We had an amazing sight of Sleeping Buddha.


Sleeping Buddha. Left most pic is head of buddha, then middle part (Kanchenjunga) is stomach and then knees and toe. Hard to describe it here, you need to imagine it.


Misty and Sleeping Buddha in the background. The image doesn’t do the justice, in reality it was quite clear.


It was nice to see Solar Panels on top of every building. I work in Solar sector, sight of PV Panels always makes me feel happy. These solar panels have helped reduce tons of CO2 from this region, tourism in such regions can be more harming than good. Providing 24X7 power supply is impossible with the grid, hence thousands of liters of diesel is burnt to produce power which pollutes more in such ecosensitive regions! Solar systems can help build a sustainable tourism, ecofriendly and economic(almost zero maintenance).

After having a sumptuous breakfast, we started driving back to Manebhanjyang. Sun was shining, which means all the snow from previous day had already melted. But the bad news is the road was slushy at few places, which thankfully wasn’t much.

Three of us (Mr, Missus and Brother) before starting!

It took us around 30mins to reach Kalipokhari.


The must have picture when you scale Sandakphu!


LR and Jeep Compass at sunny Kalipokhari

After having second round of chai (its amazing how much chai one can have when the weather is cold!), we started to Garibas. I am normally a filter coffee person (as most of the Bengalureans), but given the fact that the only coffee that is offered in the hills is awfull instant nescafe, I prefer black tea. On the way back, at least 4-5 LR’s stopped us and asked if we had actually made it to Sandakphu. The sense of happiness in responding YES to them cant be described in mere words.

At around 11am (had started at 9am) we reached Manebhanjyang. Apart from few scratches on bumper and door panels, our Jeep returned clean. We had new set of Yokohoma Earth1 tyres on our Jeep, these performed really well. At few places when sharp rocks hit the side wall of the tyre, we were scared that we had damaged the tyre, but nothing had happened apart from rubber getting scratched. These are highway tyres, but they performed like AT tyres, taking on black ice, snow, slush, rocks and boulders, sand, etc. One of the difficulties we faced was, long wheelbase and turning radius of compass. At places where there was a sharp turn and steep ascent, it was difficult to take a turn and gain momentum right after that.


This image shows how the ascent started right after the turn, the long turning radius makes things worse in such cases. LR on the other hand, had quite small turning radius, this helped them manouver much easily. So long turning radius vehicles which want to scale Sandakphu need to keep this point in mind.

The pictures shared here belong to multiple people, all thanks to Basavaraj(my brother), Amritha, Chethan and Prasad (all from BJC) for sharing their amazing pictures! Hope you liked this travelogue, more to come from our Himalayan trip

[BlackPearl]

@travelling owl let me be the first one to congratulate you on a lovely feat! Reaching Sandakphu top is an achievement and I am sure that you will cherish it for a long time. A great adventure and wonderful narration, loved reading it.

A few pictures of my Thar and Bolero in Sandakphu -

[Aditya]

Excellent travelogue and amazing pictures. Great to catch a glimpse of the countryside and the mountains during this lockdown that has forced so many of us to stay at home.

It's been many years since I visited the Himalayas. Your travelogue has really got me thinking about planning a trip once the pandemic is brought under control.

Must say, the old Land Rovers fit so easily into this scene - as if they are made for these mountains. That said, the Compass is not far behind. Congratulations to you and the team for being the first "regular" Jeep Compass drivers to scale Sandkphu.

[travelling owl]

Originally Posted by Aditya

Excellent travelogue and amazing pictures. Great to catch a glimpse of the countryside and the mountains during this lockdown that has forced so many of us to stay at home.

It's been many years since I visited the Himalayas. Your travelogue has really got me thinking about planning a trip once the pandemic is brought under control.

Must say, the old Land Rovers fit so easily into this scene - as if they are made for these mountains. That said, the Compass is not far behind. Congratulations to you and the team for being the first "regular" Jeep Compass drivers to scale Sandkphu.

Thanks @Aditya. We were lucky enough to sneak into Himalayas in the small window that opened up between first and second covid wave. Now when i think about it, it was good that we could do it, not sure when we will be able to travel again!
Yes these age old LRs are perfect fit for this terrain, though apart from the outer body nothing else is LR (most of these are Mahindra engines now!), they still work. Compass could do it, surprised us and many people around. I have some dents and marks on the car, which will remain forever as memories from the trip

Originally Posted by BlackPearl

@travelling owl let me be the first one to congratulate you on a lovely feat! Reaching Sandakphu top is an achievement and I am sure that you will cherish it for a long time. A great adventure and wonderful narration, loved reading it.

A few pictures of my Thar and Bolero in Sandakphu -

Thanks for your kind words @BlackPearl! Yes Sandakphu was definitely an achievement which will remain as one of the top accomplishments.
Lovely pictures, i can imagine the difficulty level with snow on the road! Some day i want to do Sandakphu again in a beater offroad vehicle like Thar, not being scared of belly getting scrapped. Everytime a rock or boulder hit Compass under belly, my heart skipped a beat, imagining the cost of repair if something broke

[shyamg28]

Kudos!
I have trekked this path and it is one of the easiest Himalayan treks ever, but definitely did not seem very conducive for a 4-wheeler, ergo, Kudos!
The ancient Land Rovers seemed the only rugged beasts that looked capable of taking on this terrain. Very gutsy of you to be able to drive up

[travelling owl]

Originally Posted by shyamg28

The ancient Land Rovers seemed the only rugged beasts that looked capable of taking on this terrain. Very gutsy of you to be able to drive up

Trekking Sandakphu must have been a nice experience, with the views of Kanchenjunga range. Thanks, yes it was gutsy but at some point i felt it was foolish decision. Was worried about the car getting stuck

[sameerpb]

@travelling owl great thread and achieving Sandakphu one of its kind of milestone and congratulations. BJC's valantrines day video is amazing. Jeep clubs across India is best thing to happen and like minded coming together is amazing.

Keep Jeeping !

[Jajabor]

Great travelogue congratulations on completing Sandakphu in your Jeep Compass the first Compass to do so. I too completed Sandakphu in my Army auction MM550 IN 2018 from Guwahati.

[ARAY]

Beautiful narration with some great pictures to back that up.

The crew(my brother missing in the picture, since he was clicking it), halted for engine to cool down.
Was there any indication that engine had heated up in console?
Or was it the Clutchpad.

Welcome to TeamBhp, keep travelling and sharing such wonderful threads.

[suvrog]

Awesome travelogue, with great narration and nice pictures. Congratulations on reaching the top of Sandakphu. It is itself a great achievement and I am sure you are going to remember it for a long long time.

[travelling owl]

Originally Posted by Jajabor

Great travelogue congratulations on completing Sandakphu in your Jeep Compass the first Compass to do so. I too completed Sandakphu in my Army auction MM550 IN 2018 from Guwahati.

Thanks @Jajbor. Tyres on that Bolero look amazing, i wish i could get something like this for my JC but unfortunately no AT tyres are available for this size! All thanks to import ban on tyres

Originally Posted by ARAY

Beautiful narration with some great pictures to back that up.

Thank @Aray, it was mainly for clutchpad to cool down but halting helped the engine also to cool down a bit. No indication on console, the temperature was still under control but we felt the power was getting derated after driving it for like 45mins to an hour.

Originally Posted by suvrog

Awesome travelogue, with great narration and nice pictures. Congratulations on reaching the top of Sandakphu. It is itself a great achievement and I am sure you are going to remember it for a long long time.

@suvrog, I am still hallucinating on this trip, i dont think anything will beat the experience of scaling up Sandakphu!

Originally Posted by shyamg28

I have trekked this path and it is one of the easiest Himalayan treks ever, but definitely did not seem very conducive for a 4-wheeler, ergo, Kudos!

Originally Posted by travelling owl

Trekking Sandakphu must have been a nice experience, with the views of Kanchenjunga range. Thanks, yes it was gutsy but at some point i felt it was foolish decision.

Originally Posted by sameerpb

@travelling owl great thread and achieving Sandakphu one of its kind of milestone and congratulations. BJC's valantrines day video is amazing. Jeep clubs across India is best thing to happen and like minded coming together is amazing.

@sameerpb, yup Jeep clubs across India are one of the best clubs for like minded petrolheads. BJC tops it all with regular trails in and around Bangalore .

[Unavowed_X9]

@travelling_owl

Congratulations on your trail drive to Sandakphu. The trail has improved considerably between 2016 when I first headed there on my LWB Paj and a detour tin 2020 while driving back from Mizoram to Delhi.

In 2020, was surprised to see some 2WD vehicles nearly halfway up. I still wonder if I was dreaming and that it was just an illusion. Now, except for the last 5km, the challenge of the trail has diminished considerably. Even in 2020, had my share of lucky scrapes considering it was a solo drive (meant NO SPOTTERS!)

A couple of pics from the 2020 trip





Lucky you have had help coming your way when you needed. As always, the mountains are unforgiving and you did well.

Wish you more trails in future with your Compass.

[travelling owl]

Originally Posted by Unavowed_X9

Wish you more trails in future with your Compass.

Thanks! I guess powerful 2WD will make it till Garibas but not further.

Lovely Pictures, do you have pictures from your 2016 trail? would love to see the terrain back then, can imagine the difficult level with further worse terrain that what it is right now!

Didnt you face any issue with longer wheel base? 2-3 places i had to literally move the car back and forth multiple times to take a turn! few other places were bad but manageable. I felt a shorter wheelbase like Thar can do wonders here!

[Unavowed_X9]

Originally Posted by travelling owl

Thanks! I guess powerful 2WD will make it till Garibas but not further.

This the TL I wrote after that trip. The trail after Kalipokhri was done in darkness!

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/trave...sandakphu.html (Pajero, Duster & Thar: Zero visibility raid on Sandakphu!)

[dicor]

Wow fabulous adventure. My heart sinks whenever something hits my car's underbelly. It requires lot of courage to take almost new 30+ lakhs vehicle to those type of terrains.

Thanks for sharing @travelling owl

As usual Prasad looks full of energy. Always ready for adventures.