An Uncertain Road In The Himalayas

Extreme highs and lows in India’s Himalaya

- Steve Storey

NEVER COME TO INDIA.

It was an ominous warning delivered during a stressful moment of being lost in a sea of people in Delhi. The words came from a man who was crushed against our pedal-powered rickshaw by an impossibly dense crowd of people. His admonition was not lost on us. Twenty minutes earlier, a gang of homeless children had attempted to pickpocket us. Over and over again we had been warned to leave the area, which is why we were sitting in a rickshaw in the middle of a slum with our pockets and camera gear protected. Not only had we somehow ended up in the wrong area due to bad directions from our hostel, but we had been skunked in the riding department too.

At this point, we had been traveling for six days straight without finding any trails, and it was going to be at least another three days before any mountain biking might be possible. Those words of warning uttered by a passerby struck me, and for a moment I thought: “He’s right.”

Not all days had been this bad, but over the past week our morale had plummeted from the highs of an adventure-filled 14 days to the stark realization that our best moments may be behind us. The difficulties of travel and diminished return on our struggles had our group down. We had come to India to ride our bikes in untrammeled places and immerse ourselves in one of the world’s most culture-rich countries. We were eager to move on from our mandatory stopover in Delhi and back into the world of rolling wheels.

DISCOVERY