Jalori Pass is a high mountain pass in Himachal Pradesh, India. At 10,800 feet it is easily accessible by road. It is not a commercialized tourist place yet, so it never gets crowded, hence you can enjoy the unharmed serenity of nature over there. We traveled across pristine places in Himachal Pradesh on a mountain bicycle and the highest point of our journey was Jalori Pass.
The Idea
I am not a very outgoing person, but my cousin sister Shruti introduced me to Himalayan expeditions and motivated me to participate in this cycling expedition with her. She choose this as this expedition was a unique mountain cycling experience and also had some nice reviews from her friends, who participated the previous year. This eventually became my 1st cycling expedition and one of my most memorable journeys. It was organized by Youth Hostel Association of India. It was a 8D/7N expedition in Himachal Pradesh in the month of May-June in multiple batches. Each batch had 20 participants. We registered as a group of 6 participants, which included me and my sister Shruti and our friend Aditi and 3 other friends of Shruti, whom I met only during the trek.
We had planned this trip well in advance and booked the train tickets in advance. We also had undergone some stamina building cycling practice in Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Mumbai, where we would get bicycles on rent for 2 hours.
Commencement of our Journey
Our train journey initiated from Bandra Terminus. The destination was Ambala Junction. It takes around ~24 hours to reach Ambala Junction from Mumbai. We had most of our snacks packed from home. The summer heat had drained us completely during our train journey. I met 3 friends of Shruti, who also participated with us in the journey. The train crosses Vadodara in Gujarat, Ratlam in Madhya Pradesh, Kota in Rajastham, Delhi and Haryana. There are plenty of photo worthy country side views you can capture while on this long and tiring journey.
Day 1 :Reach Base Camp
We reached Ambala Junction in morning the next day. As we were 6 explorers, we had booked an Innova to get us from Ambala Junction to Aut, out base camp for the trek. Ambala to Aut is 275 km/ 6 hour journey by car through the hilly terrain of Himachal Pradesh. We also got a glimpse of Chandigarh on the way as the highway passes through outskirts of Chandigarh. We had our lunch on the way in a Dhaba (Indian roadside lunch points) near Chandigarh. Our destination for the day, Aut is a small town on the Chandigarh-Manali highway. We reached Aut in late afternoon.
Aut is at an altitude of ~3750 feet, so it gets mildly cold in here. We have Beas River flowing parallel to the highway and Aut market is between them. The area is surrounded by hills on both sides, with the highway cutting in to the valley. There are pockets of houses around the hills.
The base camp was after the 3 km long tunnel towards Aut and behind Mehek Dry fruit building next to the highway. There was a small welcome poster board near the camp site to welcome all Jalori Pass Participants. We saw some fellow participants in the base camp, but before meeting them we were allotted our shared dormitories. We freshened up and met our fellow participants. There was one guy from Haryana, a girl from Bangalore, two dentists from Mumbai, two engineers from Pune, and one engineering student from Nagpur. With the 6 of us, and 7 of them we were a total of 13 for that batch. Although we were a group of 6 and other were either alone or in groups of 2, we were able to bond very well with each other.
We met Mithun that evening, the camp leader who managed the expedition from base camp. He is a cycling enthusiast. He is always seen wearing this cycling suit and also he has his own high-end mountain bicycle. Evening time is for rest and small activities, as it gets dark by 7 PM. We had some group discussions and cultural items like singing and sharing jokes. It helped to break the ice in our group. Mithun shared his stories of cycling across India. We then had our early dinner which included Gulab Jamun. The local cooks do make awesome food here. Since they anticipated around 20 participants and only 13 arrived, we were served an extra round of Gulab Jamun. We were provided blankets and sleeping bags in our common room. The night was cold.
Day 2: Acclimatization and Orientation
A loud bang on the door- “Chai, Chai” (“Tea, Tea”) from the cooks woke us up at around 5.30 AM. It was very difficult to get out from the warm comfort of sleeping bag and blankets into the cold environment of the dawn. We then had our morning chores, without any warm water. Brushing our teeth with the cold water, and routine activities with cold water only. I choose not to have a bath, thought I was feeling stale, just because of the damn cold water. It was a bright sunny morning.
It was time for the morning exercise. We started jogging from our base camp to the nearby ground site where we were given practice of some body warming exercises. It was just simple plain exercises which included Surya-Namaskar (ancient exercise that resembles sun worshiping) and other simple exercises. We returned to base camp after some 1 hour of body warming for some tasty breakfast. We had our snacks which included bread jam, bread butter, and daliya (oats). The food at the base camps was really good.
We then had an acclimatization walk over the nearby hill with our guide. Mithun was also with us along with the guide. The never-ending stair way up the hill looked daunting at first sight. After every corner, there were just another couple of steps. We took a moment of rest in between to catch our breath, and at the same time the locals just seem to mock us as they conquer the steps with their sheer pace and stamina. Even old local ladies were more energetic than us. We had some breath-taking views while on our way to the summit of the small hill. There were plantations of tomatoes and other veggies over the hill. We were advised by our guide not to take long breaks as it cools down your bodies and make it difficult to gather pace again. He also advised not to take long breaths from the mouth as it burns more energy again normal breathing from the nose when under fatigue. Kaustubh was the guy from Nagpur who was in our batch. He was somewhat bulky and he was grasping for his breath in the middle of the uphill climb. We waited for him to get normal and then continue the climb. The path was really nice traversing across small houses mostly made of wood. We also met some small local kids and greeted them warmly. Even they were excited to see trekkers.
We had rest time at the hill top around 10 PM. The guide had a bottle of fruit flavored squash, which was made into a drink for all of us. The guide gave us some instructions for the program, the do and don’ts. We had to choose a team leader among 13 of us, and we unanimously voted for Raj Verma to lead us in this trek, as he was the one with vast experience in trekking. He had previously completed Jasalmer Cycling Trek, which he had narrated us the day before. We then had to start the decent back to base camp. After taking some pictures over the hill, we started the descent. We were given two options, the same path or an alternate route to descent. We choose the alternate route. The new route was somewhat slippery at the start. Later when we saw the downward view of the path, some of us including me instantly regretted the decision of the path chosen. It was as if each step is a matter of life and death. Each step needed careful planning before executing. With a slow and steady pace, all of us were able to descent safely and reach back base camp. We reached on time for the lunch at base camp.
The lunch was simple nutritious food, which included green vegetables, parathas, and rice with Dal. After lunch we had some 30 minutes time for rest and then we had a session on basics of mountain cycling. Mithun taught us how to use the gears as we all were new to mountain cycling except Raj. Using gears looked simple at first. Then we were allocated our cycles for the trek, which we first had to clean them with water. We then adjusted the seats and with all the safety gear (Helmet, knee cap, reflector) we went on a trial ride. We started on the tar road, which was easy, then came the uphill climb. The site was near the highway, and it didn’t have any traffic, and featured an uphill hairpin climb so was perfect for our practice. This uphill climb was difficult, we had to just cycle on the 1-1 gear (the most powerful) gear to make the climb. We repeated the climb multiple times to get a hang of it. We then returned to base camp for breakfast at around 5 PM.
The cycling practice
Some participants from the next batch had arrived there and they were having their meetup. We quickly had our breakfast and picked our allocated YHAI ruck sack to back our bags. We were advised not to carry heavy non-essential items as we will need to adjust our ruck sack on the cycle rack, which will add to our weight when going uphill. So I had packed only the required stuffs and rest all went to my other bag which was to be kept in the Base camp Store room. I had 4 shirts with me, but to reduce the weight I decided to carry only one in my ruck sack. I had a quick dry t-shirt, so I was quite confident that it would be very useful as it can get dry after wash in just 15-30 minutes. Also the weather over there was cold, so there wasn’t much issue of sweat. One small medical kit, one extra set of clothes and one jacket for the cold.
Then we had our dinner at around 7.30 PM, again delicious but simple food. We double checked everything twice and with a ready mindset and ample preparedness, we settled in our chambers for the night.