Trapped by a blizzard.

Trip Start Sep 04, 2008

Trip End Dec 17, 2008

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Flag of India Batal, India
Friday, September 19, 2008

I was awakened at 4:30 am, drenched in sweat, by a knock at my door. My friends Tomak and Michal wanted to know if I would accompany them to Kaza in the Spiti Valley, or if I would stay one more day to rest. Our hotel in Keylong was not the type of place I wanted to hang around in, so even though I was still feeling sick, I decided to join them for the 6-7 hour trip to Kaza.

After a couple of hours on the bus, it started to snow. I didn't think much of it at first, as the snow started to cover the boulders, and then stick to the road. Our bus driver didn't seem the least bit worried, and we pushed along as the snow came down steadily. To get to the Spiti Valley, we needed to go over the Kunzum pass, at 4550 m (15,000 ft). As we began to climb up the steep road, drivers coming in the other direction warned us to turn back, but our driver just joked with them, laughing merrily, and pushed on

A stroll through Batal.

. Because our driver was so confident, none of us were particularly worried until we finally got stuck. One of the turns was just too steep, and we had no choice but to turn back.

At the base of the mountain, we stopped at a small dhaba (rest stop / restaurant). This single building constituted the 'village' of Batal, which appears on all of the maps of the area. We thought we would only be there for a few minutes, but we were then told we would wait out the storm there because the next town was 20 miles (30 km) away along a particularly difficult stretch of road.

I wasn't particularly concerned since I had a warm sleeping bag, but many others weren't prepared for this situation and didn't have any warm clothing. The Chandra Dhaba in Batal was a stone structure with a plastic tarp for a roof, and no door. The son of the owners had to climb up on the roof and scrape the snow off every hour or two, all night long, so that the roof wouldn't collapse. Needless to say, a good number of the 80 people stuck there were pretty cold. I pitched a tent with my friends Tomak and Yanka, though the first night was awful because we had to keep punching the snow off the top of the tent. As the snow piled up, it made breathing a problem as well, since there was no ventilation

Drying some clothes

.

The next day, we woke up to four feet of wet snow, and it kept coming down. We found out we'd be there for quite a bit longer. The first day, we just sort of sat there in a stupor, gazing ahead at the walls as if in a trance. We spent most of our time for the first few days trying to figure out how to get out of there, but the nearest towns were 20 miles in either direction, through four feet of snow. A couple of groups did try to walk out three days into our imprisonment, but they came back because numerous avalanches had made blocked the roads.

Our days revolved around mealtimes. We would start off the day with a cup of chai and some cookies, and lunch would be rice and dal (beans) served around noon. Then some more chai, then dinner (more rice and dal), and then a cup of tea before we tried to go to sleep. Some people slept on the bus, but it was absolutely freezing outside, so I elected to sleep inside. Most of us dreaded the frigid nights, and spent them sitting up, with our backs against the uneven stone wall, keeping close to one another for warmth. Besides planning our escape, the favorite topic of conversation was food. We were only eating two meals a day, and both of these were rice and dal, so you can imagine that we were craving something more substantial.