Re: Harsil Uttarakhand

Travelogue Approved

Black ice does extract its pound of flesh

Re: Harsil Uttarakhand

Wow Ankit! Please bring on the rest.

Sent from my Xperia L.

Re: Harsil Uttarakhand

Sitting in the goddamn plains and staring at the laptop screen, individuals like me can only dream of snow capped mountains or hills and here you are. I am sure you have loads of visual treat waiting for us. The bike on which you have traveled is the one that i would love to own in my garage- how does it perform on the hills with a pillion especially.

Re: Harsil Uttarakhand

Just wanted to know did those Impulse had any problem in breathing, or did you made any changes and then went?

Re: Harsil Uttarakhand

Wow, You are just at the gateway of hills and can go anywhere anytime.

How those tyres performed under the black ice, how much help you got from rope around the tyres in ice?

And yes, waiting for the rest of the pics

Re: Harsil Uttarakhand

Harshil was on our list when we were planning our destination to ride. But rejected it due to shortage of time. So selected Chakrata. Now it feels like we should have visited Harshil. Never mind, may be next time. And yes, would like to know the effects of ropes on tyres. Waiting for more pics.

$id
ride hard, ride safe

Re: Harsil Uttarakhand

cool stuff.
More pics please.

Re: Harsil Uttarakhand

Impulse performs fine. With pillion too its the comfortable-est around. Although the stock 150cc mill runs out of juice at few passes or heights...but with few changes its good to go. Hills are a treat on Impulse...max speed on hills are 70kph(rarely though).

It did on the previous tours. The other Red impulse has a zma engine plonked in it...whereas mine (the black one) has a custom made foam filter....better breathing and then the carb has a Zma`s mainjet size of 125. Thus overall leaning the mixture. Hence no missing and hiccups at heights untill now at 11000-12000ft above sea level (with stock engine and filters and jets it barely climbed 8000ft). I doubt if the 125 jet will work at heights above than this. I gotto go down to 120 or 118.

Tyres are awesome but the stock ceats tend to wear out with 12-13000kms on the ODO. The grooves are almost flat might run 3-4000kms odd more. I felt lots of rear outs on dirt/slush/grime. On ice they are worthless....probably every tyre is. With ropes it was a boon. Impulses were dancing around probably a lil more thicker rope will come in handy. But they lasted 10kms(including 2-3kms of tarmac..which caused it to break i guess) and flatted out and broke. Probably chains or something would come in handy the next time...or ropes with high durability. These were thick plastic ones....lasted fairly well...and most importantly it got us through the trickiest part.

Re: Harsil Uttarakhand

Great teasers...Please post some more pictures

Re: Harsil Uttarakhand

Well....with the advent of the springs and sunking winters and sunking daily shit seeking the only thing to get liberated was a trip across the mountains ..and thus it has to happen. Where and how to happen was the pretty obvious part, our very own Uttarakhand., home and dear to me at the same time. Infact Ladakh being a big pilgrimage for bikers/tourers Uttarakhand has always had a upper hand in terms of reserving a special place in my heart. Well keeoing aside my travel priorities getting back to the point….i had visited Harsil back in June2014 (http://www.xbhp.com/talkies/tourer/2...tarakhand.html) and the same being remnant to me had to be done again.
Well so it did. I was alone for the while..and now finally 2days left to set off I had one of my friend/ more of an elder brother Rohit Charles chipped in with me. Bhaiya had never been on such long trips before…but always accompanied us with weekend rides and excursions. So this being a new thing for him and me going back to harsil again was all together a very anxious stuff to embark upon.


Bikes/Mods :



I on my Hero Impulse with a custom self made foam filter and with downjetted carburetor mainjet size of 125. Just in order to get the Impulse running on high altitudes on the stock 150cc engine(the usual problem every stock Impulse suffers from) Whereas Rohit bhaiya`s Hero Impulse with a Karizma`s engine plonked in. So with the machines all good to go we set off on 15^th Feb.


Route :


Dehradun—Chakrata—Tuini—Hanol—Mori—Barkot—Uttarkas hi—Harsil—Chinyalisaur—Dehradun
With 700odd kms in total and 4 days. We were ready to set off to explore the very diverse section of Uttarakhand.

Day I :

Morning 7 we set off to Chakrata from Dehradun. With 40 kms on the ODO we had a first mild accident. Bah! A dumb head with his usual morning wrong side blind turn…what he never saw everyday was a upcoming vehicle from that side….but Viola! This day it did…it was Rohit bhaiya who was leading and got head on. Nothing serious happened but a half broken clutch lever. Well…turning a blind eye to the scene we decided to head off. Reaching after odd 90kms of riding we reached Chakrata. Town/village Chakrata doesn’t has a petrol pump but somehow we to our lucks saw a spare parts shop opened at 10:00am…now getting the lever changed we headed off.
Chakrata has been one of our usual weekend one ride destinations. Having been several times there this part of the ride was`nt that impressive or something to have explored about. Post chakrata had something new and lots of stuff to explore and drool about.
The roads after chakrata was all tarmac and smooth. Newly laid asphalt and with clouds hovering around itbwas a delight to ride. And as the things were becoming more beautiful it became more awesome when tarmac suddenly turned to offroads. With light luggage and Impulses we were enjoying the beauty around and the supple ride of the Impulse. Heading forward we witnessed the first glimpse of snow. Parked our bikes by the roadside snow…had some fun. Moving forward riding along the snow by the side fornt wheel lost its hold and skid and I slipped and broke the right rear view mirror and had a bent brake pedal…courtesy black ice. What we hed there on close imspection was a thick layer of nice solid ice underneath the bworn mud. Holy hell ! and from there on we went on further very calm and slowly…a lil sign of snow or dampness made us scared and alert to our very nerves. With lots of broken roads and offroads we reached Kanasar…a small village with conserved chir-pine and deodar trees. All we`ve heared of but never visited. Reaching there was something new to us.

Enroute Chakrata


Hovering Clouds After Chakrata


At the local market of Chakrata


Devban




Snow beneath the Mud


Bhaiya having a slide of his own !


Kanasar Chakrata



Snow Packed roads



Had a mild tea and few snacks and headed forward. With another 70odd kms of offroads the pleasure had gone and the shit had got up to the unbearable levels. Even on Impulse we were not physically but mentally stressed of the stupid roads. Finally few kms before Tuini out of nowhere taking a blind right turn came in the paved all black tarmac roads. And went down bhaiya off the bike and laid down and kissed the road and thanked god…hahah funny moment that ! moving ahead we reached the much eyed forward to place -- Hanol.

The beautiful Hanol is very small and home to the less famous but beautiful temple of Mahasu Devta. Going in and around of the temple in a curious mode rather than religious (which we are so ..so not). We heared the evening Aarti from distance. It was a blend of trumpets and big Dhols which was pretty much ambient and psychedelic and atmospsheric kinda music. Im a big heavy metal fan…and a music addict. Listening that threw me off my foot…devilish shit that was. I had the voice recorded and shall we implemented later on evening jam sessions. Yah go ahead call me a thief !.

Mahasu Devta at Hanol


Old man weaving wool at Hanol



Mahasu Devta






Now bidding goodbye and heading onward to Mori was even more scenic by the riverside. Finally we reached Mori at 7pm. With the sun down it was dark already by 6:30. Now with us in a roadside dhaba and a local aunty cooking maggi for us talked about where we are from and where we are headed to. Later after a light evening snack sorta thing we had..we headed out to search room to stay for the night and Surprise! Surprise! we didn’t found any. With a very small town and 3 hotels in total all rooms were booked that evening. With reckless searching we circled out to nothing and went to the aunty for the dinner. Having asked for what you want to have by aunty we felt a little stunned. We wished to had parathas and thus stating that she made `em. Nice Garhwali lady with sweet accent very mommy to us (haha yaah true!) upon knowing about we didn’t had rooms to stay offered a room of her house for the night stay. Okk we felt a little relaxed and a little guilty and a little weird at the same time. It was so great of her help but a slight weird sense of giving her that trouble seeped in both of us. Anyways we had to submit to her offer with 9:00 at the clock and sheer cold and closed streets of the village.

Axle deep standless Parking at the riversides.


Sunset at Mori


Mori


And if we didn’t believed in coincidences…we had to on this one, when one my students (Iam a lecturer in a polytechnic institute teaching Automobile Engg.) met me out of no where and said he lived here at Mori. Telling him about how we were having problems getting a room and all, he arranged a room for us in the same hotel we asked a while before. And now thanking aunty for her proposal we had our luggage in the rooms.…parked our bikes and that was the day ending on a nice note with lots of surprises.

Re: Harsil Uttarakhand

This is lovely travelogue/ photo feature. I also belong to kotdwara, uttrakhand but have been unfortunate not to explore it. Thia is really great and am definitely puting this route as a trip plan for myself. Thanks for the lovely pics man.

Prashant

Re: Harsil Uttarakhand

nicely done

Re: Harsil Uttarakhand

way to go Ankit- thanks for sharing such a wonderful narration to the mountains. I am building up confidence on the capabilities of the impulse. Keep it coming and i am definitely glued.

Re: Harsil Uttarakhand

Glad you loved it . Thanks pal.

Oh thanks a ton there !..

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More Stills from the trip. Will find sometime to chip in with the remaining log.
Cheers !!