From Dhankar, you can see where the Pin and Spiti rivers meet, where the Pin Valley begins. If you follow the road all the way down, you reach Mudh at the end of the road, and from there, just start walking towards the Pin-Parvati Pass. At least that's what the plan was, but sitting with chai and looking on with awe was good enough most of time. With Kungri on the way back towards Spiti and word that the murals really are worth it, we stayed in the monastery guest house that wasn't technically open, but the monks let us stay anyway. The morning of the 5th, the bus was supposed to come at 7:45 or so. Standing waiting for the bus, watching boys brush their teeth at the water pump, a bull go a little mad and run in the opposite direction of the herd, the kids run towards the school when someone yelled from the rooftop. At 8am we got word that the bus was not coming, so we hitched a tractor ride down to Gulling, 2km away. Spiti is incredibly isolated, so that was the only bus of the day. We settled down at the dhaba for chai and waited for any vehicle going to Kaza, about 35km away, not even. We considered walking, but thought, nah, something will come. By 2pm we were starting to get impatient. Not a single vehicle going to Kaza. Finally, around 3pm, three boys crammed us in with them in their hatchback and we started making our way to Kaza. About 6 1/2km down the road, we slow down, saying "What is that?" The road was blocked by a huge chunk of earth. Okay. We think, no worries, we'll walk around it and try and catch another ride. Until we walked up to it and looked behind it - glacier slide.
The road is totally gone.
About 40-50m wide of liquid earth, boulders and ice flowing across what used to be a bridge. We turn around and head to Gulling, yelling at cars and motorcycles headed in that direction that they're going to have to turn around. We ask locals how long they think it will be - one day, five days, a month...
After we get a room at the only guest house in town, we settle in the dhaba and watch as the rooms fill up. Most people have nothing with them, having planned on only taking a day trip from Kaza. Luckily, aarak (barley wine) was in good supply in town, and us and four Indian tourists settle in for a night of talking. Like I expected and what no one wanted to admit was that there were going to be many nights like this.
It got worse every day. The slide didn't stop, and the sludge caused the Pin River to flood over the road. An entire village nearby had to be evacuated. It got wider, and deeper. Slides like this are incredibly dangerous. Every day we waited to see if it was crossable and, when a few days after the slide a tractor full of people covered in mud driving through town yelled at us, laughing, "Don't go! Don't go!", we agreed.
Some other people who were stuck managed to cross relatively easily on the 8th early in the morning, but by the time we got there, it was flowing again and too deep to cross. Again, being so isolated, there was very little equipment available to use (and no petrol on that side, so the bulldozer ran out of diesel by the 7th), and it just kept coming so there's nothing they could really do. On the 8th we got word that the road wouldn't be crossable with vehicles for weeks, probably more than a month, so they were going to build a cable car. On the 9th, we got there first thing in the morning to cross on foot while the sludge was more solid and before the sun warmed up for more slides. Well, it had gotten worse over night, and a section of the road before was completely underwater, so that we had to climb way above it. We waited for hours watching (and helping) the locals try to build a cable car. By noon, it looked hopeless. The crossbar for the cable was being held by a man holding a rope crouched on the side of the mountain. The cable wouldn't get sturdy. The water and sludge was starting to flow heavier. The road flooding more. Some locals started crossing on foot, using what of the cable they could to hold onto and walk on. From our side, there was about 20m of deep sludge, then 20m of rock and muddy water that was sturdy, then about another 20m of really deep, really thick sludge. A British tourist standing next to me, watching the locals, asked "Would you do that?"
Apparently I would.
When the friends we had made in Gulling started crossing, we realized that if we didn't go now, we may not be going for a very, very long time. So, before we had time to overthink it, we went.
The first 20m, Jon had his sandals ripped off by the thickness of the mud, and we were waist deep in mud. The cable helped immensely crossing that part. The rocky stuff gave us a breather. Then, the last part. The mud was so thick we couldn't lift our legs and started sinking. Locals were yelling at us to try to walk on the cable that was now under the mud, but it had gone too deep (about 6 people crossed before us). Jon yelled at me to start crawling, and that helped. It wasn't just thick mud - being a glacier slide, it was full of jagged rocks. Near the end, I was so exhausted I could hardly move. A local on the other side threw in a piece of wood that stuck on top enough for me to get my leg on it, and they pulled us out the rest of the way.
My pants got pulled off in the mud, Jon's got completely destroyed with rips from the rocks, his sandals broke, we were completely covered in mud from head to toe, we got scrapes all over our hands, feet, and knees, but we are safe, alive, and not still in Pin Valley.
Two people who crossed after us got lifted out of the sludge by a bulldozer. They looked so clean, I had to laugh. Having caught my breath, being able to think a little more clearly, the situation was suddenly painfully funny. Here, in Spiti, I had been thinking intensely on how little I was in comparison to my landscape. How easily it can overtake me. How wonderful it is to be so small.
The local police and army officials gave us a ride in the back of the truck to the junction toward Kaza. We hobbled out and down to where the river still ran clean. Another police truck drove us the rest of the way to Kaza where the seven of us, covered in mud, got some strange looks indeed.
That night, we got word that someone died, and that around 5pm, the glacier dropped a huge piece and made it completely uncrossable, destroying any hope of a useful ropeway. Today, the rest of the tourists who didn't cross with us on Saturday are supposedly being airlifted out.
I think crossing was a better choice.
The road is totally gone.
About 40-50m wide of liquid earth, boulders and ice flowing across what used to be a bridge. We turn around and head to Gulling, yelling at cars and motorcycles headed in that direction that they're going to have to turn around. We ask locals how long they think it will be - one day, five days, a month...
After we get a room at the only guest house in town, we settle in the dhaba and watch as the rooms fill up. Most people have nothing with them, having planned on only taking a day trip from Kaza. Luckily, aarak (barley wine) was in good supply in town, and us and four Indian tourists settle in for a night of talking. Like I expected and what no one wanted to admit was that there were going to be many nights like this.
It got worse every day. The slide didn't stop, and the sludge caused the Pin River to flood over the road. An entire village nearby had to be evacuated. It got wider, and deeper. Slides like this are incredibly dangerous. Every day we waited to see if it was crossable and, when a few days after the slide a tractor full of people covered in mud driving through town yelled at us, laughing, "Don't go! Don't go!", we agreed.
Some other people who were stuck managed to cross relatively easily on the 8th early in the morning, but by the time we got there, it was flowing again and too deep to cross. Again, being so isolated, there was very little equipment available to use (and no petrol on that side, so the bulldozer ran out of diesel by the 7th), and it just kept coming so there's nothing they could really do. On the 8th we got word that the road wouldn't be crossable with vehicles for weeks, probably more than a month, so they were going to build a cable car. On the 9th, we got there first thing in the morning to cross on foot while the sludge was more solid and before the sun warmed up for more slides. Well, it had gotten worse over night, and a section of the road before was completely underwater, so that we had to climb way above it. We waited for hours watching (and helping) the locals try to build a cable car. By noon, it looked hopeless. The crossbar for the cable was being held by a man holding a rope crouched on the side of the mountain. The cable wouldn't get sturdy. The water and sludge was starting to flow heavier. The road flooding more. Some locals started crossing on foot, using what of the cable they could to hold onto and walk on. From our side, there was about 20m of deep sludge, then 20m of rock and muddy water that was sturdy, then about another 20m of really deep, really thick sludge. A British tourist standing next to me, watching the locals, asked "Would you do that?"
Apparently I would.
When the friends we had made in Gulling started crossing, we realized that if we didn't go now, we may not be going for a very, very long time. So, before we had time to overthink it, we went.
The first 20m, Jon had his sandals ripped off by the thickness of the mud, and we were waist deep in mud. The cable helped immensely crossing that part. The rocky stuff gave us a breather. Then, the last part. The mud was so thick we couldn't lift our legs and started sinking. Locals were yelling at us to try to walk on the cable that was now under the mud, but it had gone too deep (about 6 people crossed before us). Jon yelled at me to start crawling, and that helped. It wasn't just thick mud - being a glacier slide, it was full of jagged rocks. Near the end, I was so exhausted I could hardly move. A local on the other side threw in a piece of wood that stuck on top enough for me to get my leg on it, and they pulled us out the rest of the way.
My pants got pulled off in the mud, Jon's got completely destroyed with rips from the rocks, his sandals broke, we were completely covered in mud from head to toe, we got scrapes all over our hands, feet, and knees, but we are safe, alive, and not still in Pin Valley.
Two people who crossed after us got lifted out of the sludge by a bulldozer. They looked so clean, I had to laugh. Having caught my breath, being able to think a little more clearly, the situation was suddenly painfully funny. Here, in Spiti, I had been thinking intensely on how little I was in comparison to my landscape. How easily it can overtake me. How wonderful it is to be so small.
The local police and army officials gave us a ride in the back of the truck to the junction toward Kaza. We hobbled out and down to where the river still ran clean. Another police truck drove us the rest of the way to Kaza where the seven of us, covered in mud, got some strange looks indeed.
That night, we got word that someone died, and that around 5pm, the glacier dropped a huge piece and made it completely uncrossable, destroying any hope of a useful ropeway. Today, the rest of the tourists who didn't cross with us on Saturday are supposedly being airlifted out.
I think crossing was a better choice.
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