Day 4:
I woke up at around 6:30 Am, glanced outside, and all saw was white, absolute white. There was a sheet of snow on everything possible and only one color was visible, it snowed heavy at night. I woke up Nandini and Priyanka and we all were excited to see fresh snow. Nandani pointed that she can see something falling under the street light.
Yes.
Its snowing, and its snowing very very heavy. We packed all the snow proof cloths over us and ran outside to enjoy the snow. It was a fantastic experience, our first heavy snow fall. Streets of Pahalgam were completely empty, it was just us and heavy snowfall. I had this fear of how will we go back, but it was time to enjoy, we will sort out return journey later.
We played for around 3 hours in snowfall, and it was growing heavy by every hour. Snow clearing machine cleared the main road at around 8 Am and by 10 Am, its was all the same.
By 11 Am, every guest in the hotel was in panic mode, we could see lots of activity and taxi walla urging tourist clients to leave Pahalgam as early as possible. I talked to one of the hotel staff on how should we plan, and he suggested that if possible we should leave right now, because if it continues to snow like that, roads will be closed for next 2-3 days. We packed up quickly, checked out and tried to take the car out of the parking.
There was a steep incline from hotel parking to the market road, and it was all covered with snow and ice. My first test happened here, I struggled to take the car up, but with the push from people around I managed to take it out.
All ready, we bid goodbye to the friendly staff and started driving cautiously. I reduced the tyre pressure to almost 20 Psi (normal is 32psi) and kept driving at 20Km/Hr. I was doing fine till I met with my first descent, where I had to brake a bit. I think I tapped the brakes little hard, and that was enough for the car to skid towards the valley. Luckily there was too much snow at the edge and we slammed the snow. It was scary but somehow with the help from a local taxi driver we managed to bring the car back on track.
I further reduced the tyre pressure to 15 psi and speed reduced to 10km/hr in first gear. After next 1 hour of drive I was getting the hold of the situation. We did slipped couple of time in between, but I realized it normal as I saw many local vehicle stuck in strange position due to slipping in snow.
We reached Anantnag by 4:00 Pm and it was clear that we can not reach Srinagar with so much snow on the road and under heavy snowfall. I decided to take the night break at Anantnag, called Jagjit bhai and he suggested to stay at Government Guest House and recommended few Hotels. We drove by the hotels and didn't like it from outside.
We drove upto Government Guest house and asked for room to the gaurd at the gate, he took me inside to the caretaker who refused rooms, saying its all full. As I came back to the car, received a call from Jagjit that he booked a room for us at the guest house and gave me the number of ACP. After few calls and strict instructions, we were inside one of the best, centrally heated room, dinner served in room, unlimited supply of tea and chocolate milk
Finally ends one the most difficult drive of my life, but it was a wonderful end of the 2013 as well. I guess will enjoy the new year eve under heavy snow.
It was the start of the snow fall
Streets of Pahalgam all snowed out
Nandini's new friends
Finally people coming out
Gears all covered
View from our room
Maggi time
One family shot
More snow on the car
More random
Only few pics I could dare to click during our return journey, I so much wanted to stop every next minute.