The Himalayan Challenge - Day 5 & 6
Reports by Syd Stelvio. Photos by Gerard Brown
~~~~ Day 5: September 25, 2018 ~~~~
Manali - Update
Hostages to fortune
Yesterday was a strange rest day to say the least. We knew that we were in the middle of a minor natural disaster and there was nothing to do but sit it out.
The rally was almost marooned and over the course of the day the rain kept coming, the roads kept collapsing and the TV news channels kept us informed. Manali was pretty much cut off from the rest of the world.
Throughout our 'ordeal' however the hotel Manu Allaya did us proud. Hot buffets miraculously appeared for lunch and dinner along with tea and coffee and when the electricity supply failed they switched on the generator and assured us that they had enough fuel for five days of careful usage which meant midday blackouts and no lights after the bar closed. Surely five days would be enough?
Clerk of the Course and route designer John Spiller enjoyed no rest at all. He spent almost every waking hour either on the telephone to his network of local contacts or shuttling between the two rally hotels on opposite sides of the raging Beas River to deliver news and keep the crews abreast of developments the ground.
Because the main rally HQ hotel is only accessible by a long scramble over the chasm that was once the access road much of today will be spent relocating to bring the rally back together on the same side of town.
Circumstances have dictated the options available and with input from the authorities and local guides it is clear the rally will spend a minimum of one or two extra nights in Manali. Today the 48 hour advance car of Dick Appleton and Chris Mills will once again go ahead to scout out possible problems and pitfalls.
Guy Woodcock along with Sarah Ormerod and John and Gill Cotton will also get on down the road to more fully map out a route to take us to Shimla where the rally will probably spend an extra night before picking up on the original day schedule.
The forecast is improving and we’ve all got our fingers crossed.
September 25, 2018
Manali - Late Extra
All together now
The weather eased this morning so the ERA team swiftly put plan A into action. Under a blue sky with fluffy white clouds, the evacuation of the Manu Allaya hotel began.
Those crews who had been billeted in this, the original rally HQ hotel on the Old Leh Manali Road, were ferried down the mountain in a fleet of open backed pickup trucks to the impasse, a yawning chasm some 10 metres across, where the road used to be. Luckily, a narrow strip of tarmac remained, strewn with rocks and rubble, along one side of the void, and it was just wide enough to carefully walk along. With John Spiller on the lookout for any more falling boulders, and Rikki Proffit acting as a baggage carrier, everyone made it safely across.
On the way over, there was barely any time to take in the magnificent views, but those who did manage to steal a glance upwards saw the most impressive snow-capped peaks on all sides of the valley. This is what we’ve been missing for the last three days and sadly what we’ll probably miss tomorrow now that very same snow has blocked the Rohtang Pass to the north.
Another bumpy ride in another open backed pickup took the crews to the only bridge left standing in Manali and thence across into the town centre where we’d left the cars on that very wet night.
In the, by now, steaming school carpark, the sweeps were hard at it already. They’d found themselves on the right side of the landslide when we first arrived so they had a head start on matters and they were very busy.
Ludovic Bois and Julia Coleman’s Volvo was only firing on three cylinders on the way into Manali and today was the first opportunity they’d had to look under the bonnet. Fuel problems, electrical gremlins and even a blown head gasket all fell under suspicion.
Graham and Marina Goodwin’s Bentley - Horace to its friends - badly needed his electrical equipment drying out. Those wet nights parked in the open had taken their toll and Graham had every wire and plug out of the engine and into the sun.
Similarly Jonathon and Freddie Turner were looking at rectifying some minor electrical issues, as were Philip Lunnon and Michael Draper - again with a Bentley.
Jamie Turner was deep into Roland Singer and Hans Maus’s Saab which had suffered what they thought was a recurring fuel pump problem on the way into Manali but, on closer examination, the trouble was more likely to have been caused by some dirt which had worked its way into the carburettor.
Away from the school yard, Keith and Norah Ashworth had used their rest day wisely and had managed to get their cracked Mercedes manifold welded. They’ll have a much quieter ride from now on.
David and Jo Roberts unfortunately are now back in Delhi. They lost their transmission before they got to Manjeev’s Ridge and have had to truck their Triumph to the capital for either repairs or repatriation. With the hold ups we’ve had and the likelihood of a re-route there’s a chance that they’ll be able to affect a repair and catch up.
We’re pretty much now gruppo compatto, settled in the White Mist Hotel, south of Manali, on the east bank of the Beas River which, thankfully has calmed down a lot. It has however left quite a trail of destruction and, John and Gill Cotton, along with Guy Woodcock and Sarah Ormerod who had been sent out to look at route options had to return to base, because another road had vanished.
The 48 hour crew, comprising Dick Appleton and Chris Mills, fared a little better though. On reaching another failed bridge, they strapped their packs to their backs, clambered across a suspension bridge and hiked to a village to rendezvous with another hire car so as to carry on down to Shimla.
The mood in camp is very good and the crews are doing their best to live up to that famous rally maxim “when the going gets tough, the tough go to the bar”.
~~~~ Day 6: September 26, 2018 ~~~~
Manali to Shimla
Hanging by a thread
At 5.00am this morning, with the mercury sat at a chilly 10°c, a convoy of some 33 rally cars rolled out of the Manali White Mist Hotel, heading south.
John Spiller had worked out a way to get his men and machinery out of the Kullu Valley and back into the game. The details of this plan had been announced over dinner the previous evening. All who heard it seemed to agree that it was a bold move indeed and one which was likely to break the current deadlock, and would hopefully, get us on the road again.
As the convoy stole through the unlit streets, (as quietly as such a collection could) the only other living souls that stirred were the stray dogs, picked out variously by the cool blue moonlight and the flickering headlamps of the cars.
Key ERA team personnel had already gone ahead, with some having left as early as 4.00am, in order to put this audacious escape plan into effect. They carried orders, 'secure the last bridge in the valley at all costs and to Hold until relieved'. This was no ordinary bridge though, and this would be no ordinary crossing. Our early morning passage over the very narrow Raison suspension bridge will most definitely go down as an extraordinary feat.
With only the moon to guide them, and a set of well-prepared route notes, this mechanised column, stretching for almost a kilometre, was led by Ed Rutherford, who was charged with delivering everyone safely to one vital hairpin bend which led to the crossing point. This sharp right turn, onto a semi-metalled track was the point of no return. Too narrow to turn around on and too long and steep to reverse back to the road. As such the cars had been rigorously assessed and their dimensions carefully compared with that of the bridge.
The 25 km journey to the bridge passed slowly and, as the white peaks of the high Himalaya disappeared from view, the dire state of the roads we’d be leaving behind became clearer by the minute and our thoughts turned to those not so fortunate who would have to stay, pick up the pieces and live with the consequences of the past few days.
Tony Jones and Jamie Turner were the marshals chosen to line the vehicles up correctly for their crossing and were also on hand to give the crews a quick pep talk, before they set their wheels on the unsteady platform spanning the Beas River. Local vehicles had been using the crossing regularly, so no one doubted the integrity of the structure, but it took a certain amount of resolve to release the handbrake and press the gas pedal.
After a single but seemingly long hour everyone made it safely across to the west bank. The sun rose and began to warm us, and our rally world was suddenly a better place to be in.
Paradoxically, it was pretty much downhill for the rest of the morning as we rolled into the lower foothills through towns such as Kullu, Bhunter, Mandi and Sundernager before checking into a Passage Control in the busy town of Ghaghas where there was also plenty of choice for a midday snack.
The temperature now sat at 30°c and some of the cars suffered on the inevitable climbs out of the valleys and onwards to the night halt in Shimla which sits at 2,000m.
Matthias Bittner and Denis Billon’s Volvo limped for a while with a heat related fuel issue whilst
Bjorn Schage and Trond Brathen’s Morgan blew a water hose and discovered a leaking radiator cap but, these two Peking to Paris veterans decided to sort it out themselves calling on the sweeps only for moral support. Tomorrow they plan on fashioning a permanent repair and will look at their rear shocks which they fear might well be about to fail.
Tonight we’re staying in the Oberoi Cecil and the mood is victorious. It’s likely that we'll be in Shimla for three days at least before we pick up the original rally schedule on day ten but there’s plenty to do and see in this busy town which was once the summer capital of the British Raj.
Reports by Syd Stelvio. Photos by Gerard Brown