Mission Impossible

In search of adventure we take a hard left off the sanitised Manali-Leh highway, to retrace parts of the old salt and sapphire trade route across the Shingo-La pass that has been the domain of trekkers for centuries

- Aatish Mishra

“BARAF PAD RAHI HAI.” AND JUST LIKE THAT this phone call informing us of the arrival of winter, and the snows, very nearly canned this story.

Our plan was simple enough — find some place we hadn’t been to; somewhere remote, spectacular and challenging. Preferably over a road that had yet to be traced on Google Maps. A couple of calls, some research, and we zeroed in on a trekking path that, on recently assuming strategic importance, had been made... kind of... motorable. Linking the Lahaul and Zanskar valleys of Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh, the Shingo-La pass had been used for centuries to bring down goods on the backs of yaks and mules, trading them in for potatoes, rice and the basic necessities for sustenance in one of the most remote, inhospitable and harshest places on earth. A sprinkling of snow would prove to be a bit of a bother. A snow storm means we’re screwed, especially when the guys that headed out on motorcycles a week prior to reconnaissance the route for us had got snowed in. They had yet to return to civilisation and there was no way to connect with what was supposed to be our support crew.

“We’ll figure it out,” said the infuriatingly optimistic editor as he handed me the keys to his long term test Volkswagen Tiguan, promising to catch up in Manali three days later. His logic was that it was too early for the snows to sustain and his old rally buddies up there would sort out any problems for us — conveniently forgetting that they had to walk half way down Baralacha pass before getting rescued when the ’05 Raid got snowed in. Shoot me for not wanting to die somewhere God forsaken.