Pakistan - 24 - Gilgit To Chitral - Climbing Up To The Pass

Gilgit to Chitral – Part 2 – Climbing up to the pass

November 3rd 2008 Once we reached the village of Phandur, the road disappeared and we were left riding on a rocky jeep track, some of the road being reasonable, other sections a warning of what was to come. We climber steadily to the village of Teru where we stayed in a government rest house which we had to get opened up as it had closed for the winter. We had a whole suite to ourselves, although with no electricity or heating we spent most of the evening sat in our sleeping bags around a candle eating the simple but delicious food provided by the caretaker. The next day we cycled up to about 3300m before the road started to deteriorate and climb viciously. We managed about 200m before we had to get off and push. It was really hard going, the surface was too rocky and steep to ride fast enough not to fall off. If it had been metalled we would have been able to ride up the gradient at about 5km/h, but with the appalling rocky surface we were only ever going to be able to push. Some sections of the hair-pins flattened out a bit and we pedalled our way nearer to the plateau. Every few hundred metres I would leave my bike and walk back down to help Isabelle who would be struggling to push her bike up some of the more ridiculous sections. Occasionally a Jeep would pass us going not much faster than our walking pace and all the passengers would clap and cheer our progress. After a ridiculous length of time we finally reached the plateau that makes up the approach to the top of the Shandur pass, and to what we hoped would be the beginning of several days of simple riding downhill from the summit to Chitral.

© Simon Taylor 2008