Stopped by a slide above Palchan

Left Manali around eight. Sky was the usual monsoon grey but not actually raining, so I took the Himalayan up the Solang side just to be moving. Half the road up there is patched or washed out this time of year and you ride expecting it.

A couple of kilometres past Palchan there was a queue. Small slide across most of the road, mud and stones and one rock nobody was shifting by hand. Two trucks, a tempo traveller and about fifteen of us waiting. The BRO machine came in forty minutes or so, which for August is quick.

Stood there with tea from the shack at the corner. That man does his whole season out of exactly this kind of morning. Nobody was shouting, everyone knows how it goes. Once it opened I went up ten minutes more, saw the cloud sitting flat on the road ahead and turned around. Home by one, chain full of grit, wheels caked solid. Cleaning it took longer than the ride.