Weekend away part 4 - stuck in the mud

For the next part of our adventure we decided to take a drive down this little jeep track descending into Gittidas - this large area of green pasture at the head of the valley.  As always, click the pics to view them full size - it's usually well worth it!

Looking down into Gittidas.

This little road was awesome, and driving down it was kinda hair-raising.  The
road-builders have obviously just rearranged the scree slope a bit, using the
stones they take from the left side to build up the right side like a dry-stane dyke.

Our borrowed Land Cruiser coped quite happily with rocks and streams...

...but was less happy when we discovered this bit was a little deeper and a little
more slippery than we had anticipated.  Jimmy and I did some experimental
attempts at going forward and back, and trying to get some flat stones under
the wheels.  Trouble was, we appeared to have driven off the edge of a sort of
ledge of harder ground, upon which our spare tyre and rear diff were grounded.
A couple of local guys turned up and we had a go at jacking up the back of
the car in another attempt at getting some stones under the wheels.  We gave
up and they wandered on.

This is where we started to wonder things like "how far back were the last
people we saw?" and "how many hours of daylight do we have left? and "how
cold do you think it gets here at night?"

Actually, there were a surprising number of people passing by.  We recalled
having seen a tractor working further back down the valley, so after a bite to
eat Jimmy (with his superior language skills) hiked off to find some locals.

In the meantime we weren't short of things to look at.  Several lone guys came
past at intervals, and enquired how we were doing.  Being the man, I had to do
the communicating guessing what they were saying and trying to explain that
yes we did have someone else with us and he'd gone down the valley to bring a
tractor.  One guy said we should get some wood to lever the back of the car up.

Suppressing my doubts about the likelihood of finding any wood in this tree-
less part of the valley, I followed him to some patches of scree where he thought
he might have seen some.  After a while of scrabbling around and moving rocks
back and forward, he declared/gestured that it probably under this patch of ice
and snow and would therefore be difficult to extract.  I thanked him for his help
and he shouldered his pack (which appeared to be full of animal dung for fuel)
and continued on his way.  Whether he had actually seen some there previous
time he was here, or whether he was just showing willingness to help, we'll
never know.

The rescue party.  After a bit of a hike, Jimmy came across these chaps, and
got chatting to them.  They told him some stories about all the people they'd
dug out:  "Oh yes, there was this doctor who got stuck and the jeep couldn't
get him out, and the tractor couldn't get him out, but then he paid us eleven
thousand rupees and we got him out!"

To which the reply was "I'm sorry, we don't have that kind of money".  After
settling on a flat rate of four thousand (just under £30) to get us out, they got
out their spade and walked back up with him.  (Jimmy had asked for more
than these four to help us essentially lift the car out, but that would have
meant sharing out the reward money between more people, so...)

Hard at work.  By this time it was getting kinda chilly for our summer clothes.

Free!

As we started our long journey back (5 hours including a stop for some
local chicken karahi at about 10pm - we'd lost 2-3 hours in the mud),
it started to get pretty.

Driving back down those roads in the dark was less hair-raising than you might
expect - a case of what's out of sight is easier to put out of your mind.  Further
down it had evidently rained a bit earlier, which made some sections a little
more exciting.

Last but not least, over the course of the day we had seen (and had to stop for) various flocks that the Gujjars were driving back up to the pastures.  But it became quickly apparent that they do much of their moving at night time - cooler and less traffic.  We'd just see a couple of little torch lights in the darkness ahead, then we'd be pulled over watching thousands of animals troop though our headlights.  In the video above, about 3/4 of the flock had already passed by the time I'd got my camera out.

There was some fairly amazing stargazing to be had up here too.  We made it back to Naran just before midnight, where the nightlife was still buzzing!