On the way from Bishkek to Osh tourists sometimes take a detour to Lake Song Kol; a beautiful lake edged by mountains. There are various roads to this lake but we decided we would take a little used high road and travel over a mountain pass. It would be about 160km from the turn off on the main road to the village near the lake where we could refuel. Captain had found this route on WikiLok, which is an online resource for people who have made a journey (by foot, bike, car….) to share the details of the route with others.
We camped by the side of a river just past the turn off and set off the next morning on this route. We had calculated we had enough petrol to reach the village and briefly discussed that we could go ‘so far’ and still turn back if the road was proving too challenging. I drove the first 60 km or so before lunch on a rocky, pot holed road that was fun to drive, if slow going, and surrounded by beautiful scenery. There was the odd bit of snow around, a few inhabited houses, a large river and lots of stunning mountains. So far so good.
I can remember saying to Captain, at 2500 metres elevation, that we hopefully won’t be getting any higher as the snow seemed to be deeper on higher ground. It was then that he told me the pass was at 3500 metres. I was beginning to become a tad apprehensive the more we climbed, as in front of us was nothing but massive snow covered mountains. Nerves were calmed, however, when we passed the first car we had seen going in the other direction: that must mean that the road was clear and drivable. So far so good.
We stopped for lunch and Captain took over behind the wheel. We continued to climb and it wasn’t long before snow started to encroach on the road in small slushy patches. I started to notice that there were no tyre tracks in any of the snow and it soon dawned on me that the car we had seen hadn’t actually come from over the pass. The snow had most likely fallen three days ago when there was a day of torrential rain……which meant that no cars had crossed the pass for at least three days. To make matters more worrisome; by the side of the road, were the obvious remnants of people’s houses and animal holdings. The region had been deserted by its summer inhabitants as they took their herds lower down and further south for the approaching winter.
We were also now in the position where we didn’t have enough fuel to turn around and go back to refuel. We had no choice but to keep going higher and higher. At the top of the pass snow lay thickly on the road and the road twisted and turned sharply as it snaked its way over the mountain summit. Luckily there were tracks in the snow of the last animals that had been guided out; so we were able to follow these as the road was impossible to determine. Luckily too, the snow remained slushy as the car crawled along the mountain’s sharp and precipitous edges.
Finally we reached the top and started to make the long descent down the other side. As the snow and elevation became less and less, so did my furtive imagination and nerves: the ‘what ifs?’
The visions of us hiking out: lessened; the emergence of us, skeletal yet alive, 5 months later: ceased; the sensational tabloid headlines: that were never published; the international rescue efforts: aborted; brave acts of local heroism: abandoned; the parallels of ‘Touching the Void’: diminished; the tales of untimely death: faded; fables of lost travellers: unread; future archeological discoveries: denied…..
Oh…….the ‘what ifs?’ of a Drama Queen High on a Mountain Pass.
Have you reached Osh
Was that route over the pass the worst you expect?