We woke up early on 10th Oct since the plan was to leave at 6AM. But there was a heavy snow drift going on. It soon strengthened into a blizzard. There was a lot of discussion about the plan of action and whether we should leave or stay on till the weather clears. It we decide to stay, there is no telling how long we will have to stay- days, maybe even weeks. If we leave, we must be prepared for a tough time. Blizzards are always severe and frequent on the shelf. As we go inland, the intensity decreases. This is expected after C7, when soft snow is less and blue ice is more. Keeping this fact in mind, we decided to leave now. If there was any trouble enroute, we can always halt anywhere. So finally we wound up the Banjara and departed at 8am. Visibility was reduced to just a few meters. We were totally dependant on the GPS for navigation. The track marks and the route markers were lost to view. One could not differentiate between the ground and the sky. It was as if we were driving into the white counterpart of a black hole. We had to keep the vehicle in front in view to ensure that we did not get left behind. There was also a risk of ramming into the vehicle in front. For these reasons, we did not deviate one bit from the route shown on the GPS. All the vehicles were carrying 20 tonnes of load each and we were driving on soft snow. Hence the tracks of the vehicles sank in the snow. Progress was terribly slow. Had we taken the right decision?
We had doubts when the fan belt of one of the vehicles broke. Under normal circumstances this would have been a minor problem. But in a blizzard of this intensity, repairing anything was a major undertaking. Grudgingly, people left their vehicles and got about repairing it. After about 2 hours of stumbling and fumbling, the fan belt was replaced. When the logistics personnel returned to their vehicles, they were looking more like yetis than humans- covered with snow from head to toe, and shivering terribly. We first warmed ourselves in our vehicles then moved on. Further vehicle breakdowns were the last thing we wanted- at least not today. The convoy crawled ahead steadily. We were in constant touch with each other to ensure that no one got left behind and that no one deviated from the track. The vehicles were all huddled close. The order in which the vehicles would move was strictly followed.
As usual, I was in the same vehicle as Mr Jamwal. We were driving due south. The wind was blowing from the east. The driver’s seat was on the left. So it was on the same side as the direction of the wind. The wind was so strong that snow was percolating through minor defects in the beading of the door on Jamwal’s side. Because of this, frost formed repeatedly on the windscreen inspite of the heater. Ice also formed on the door. Water was dripping on Jamwal’s dangri. It froze as soon as it fell. So his dangri was full of ice. He had to repeatedly scrap the ice from the wind screen to keep the view clear. Pretty soon so much ice formed on his door that it virtually sealed it off. Snow stopped percolating inside. He did not open the door after that. Whenever he had to go out, he did so from my side. The door on my side was on the leeward side. So snow accumulated outside my window. On coming in touch with the window, the snow melted because the cabin was heated from inside. But it soon refroze. So ice formed outside my door also. The ice broke under its own weight and reformed. Ice had also formed on the door knob outside. It was very hard and could not be broken. So whenever I left the vehicle, Jamwal had to hop over the instrument panels and open the door from inside before I could enter.
We reached C7 in about 4 hours. But we got no respite from the blizzard. We next aimed for B17. The soft ice decreases further beyond that. But there was no such luck. The visibility was getting poorer with each passing hour. At one stage it was so bad that we could not see the vehicle directly in front of us. Just a faint shadow of the vehicle was visible. We hung on to the GPS for dear life, not taking our eyes off it for a moment. The decision to move ahead seemed to have been a pathetically bad one at this stage. It would have been wise to stay at the shelf till the conditions improved. But now we had to move on. Stopping now would have been a Herculean task. Setting up the Banjara and Jeevan Jyoti and then winding them up again before leaving was a 6 hour job. So halting now was to be considered only when there was a vehicular breakdown. The vehicles had to be refuelled twice under such conditions. More snow that ATF went inside the tanks.
We were now able to contact Maitri. We were told that there was only a snow drift at Maitri. That meant that as we got closer to Maitri, the conditions would surely improve. We soldiered on in that hope. Beyond A21, there is only minimal soft snow. We expected the situation to surely improve beyond. But the route from B10 to A20 is a crevasse area and is extremely uneven since there is a gradual descent. We were not able to see the fissures in the blue ice. So we got some very nasty jerks here. There was a danger that the hook of the vehicle would break if the trailers were jerked so badly. But luckily nothing of that sort happened.
We reached A20 at 6pm. The conditions improved drastically here. The blizzard gave way to a snow drift and visibility improved significantly. We were very comfortable now. But the wind was still as strong as before. We made rapid progress from here on.
We reached Sankalp at 12midnight. There was no drift here. All the trailers were unhooked here. We finally reached Maitri at 1:30am on 11th Oct, and collapsed into bed. It was a valiant effort under the most testing conditions. The men and their machines had stood upto the challenge.
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