SAN­DRA L BLOOD

blood­l­sandy@gmail.com

High­er than the Mt Ever­est base camp, Trinida­di­an Shar­lene Han­iff be­came the first Trinida­di­an woman and al­so the first fe­male Tri­ni mo­tor­cy­clist to sum­mit one of the world’s high­est mo­torable roads, Um­ling La in In­dia. Lo­cat­ed with­in the Hi­malayan Moun­tains, it ris­es 19,024 ft (5,798 m) above sea lev­el. The Ever­est base camp sits at an al­ti­tude of 17,598 feet (5,364 me­ters) in Nepal.

Han­iff was among a group of 15 peo­ple in June on an ex­pe­di­tion, Above and Be­yond: A Jour­ney Through Al­ti­tudes, that in­clud­ed 10 bik­ers, nine of them men.

Apart from be­ing a bik­er, Han­iff, 52 years “young” from Gas­par­il­lo, is a busi­ness­woman, a sin­gle par­ent of an “amaz­ing” 15-year-old son, and an avid hik­er who has touched many trails in Trinidad and abroad.

“Hik­ing is al­so one of my pas­sions,” said Han­iff, “but my love for mo­tor­bikes start­ed when I was about 10 years old. My broth­er, Sha­keel, had a trail bike and my old­er broth­er, Ash­ley, took me for a ride around the vil­lage. While joyrid­ing, the bike shut down for gas and then it be­gan to rain. The two of us had to push the bike home, and in the process of push­ing, I fell face down on the road, but got up laugh­ing and con­tin­ued push­ing the bike. I was hooked from that day, but my rid­ing jour­ney ac­tu­al­ly start­ed when I was 35, in­spired dur­ing a Dale Carnegie course on Pub­lic Speak­ing.

“One of the as­sign­ments dealt with some­thing I al­ways want­ed to do and al­ways kept putting off – rid­ing a mo­tor­bike. I reg­is­tered for class­es, and from then I have been rid­ing.” Odd­ly, though, Han­iff’s first ex­pe­ri­ence was on the streets of Del­hi.

“It was hor­ri­fy­ing,” she ex­claimed. “It looked like an old ver­sion of Mu­cu­rapo Street in San Fer­nan­do, just more over­crowd­ed. The thought that went through my head was ‘Thank God my great-grand­par­ents left In­dia, but don’t let that de­ter you.’ How­ev­er, North­ern In­dia was one of the most breath­tak­ing­ly beau­ti­ful places that I’ve ever been to,” Han­iff re­called.

Han­iff said she feels ex­treme­ly proud to have touched her an­ces­tors’ com­mu­ni­ties.

“In North­ern In­dia, I vis­it­ed Kash­mir, Sri­na­gar, Son­marg, Kargil, Leh, Nubra Val­ley, Pan­gong Lake, Han­ley Um­ling La Pass, and Tso Moriri Lake. While in In­dia, I tast­ed the best Chai tea.”

Her two fears

“I had two fears: riv­er cross­ing and rid­ing on sand. When we reached the first riv­er cross­ing, I sat on my bike and ob­served a few of the guys cross­ing, and I said to my­self, ‘Shar­lene, if they can do it, then so can you.’ I gath­ered up my courage and put my bike in­to first gear. While ring­ing the throt­tle, I stood up on the pegs, and while pray­ing with my heart pound­ing in my throat, I start­ed to ride across the riv­er. Some­how, I made it across to the oth­er side with­out falling in­to the icy cold wa­ter. That boost­ed my con­fi­dence tremen­dous­ly. I couldn’t stop smil­ing for the rest of the day.”

Han­iff said the roads in the Hi­malayan moun­tains are a bik­er’s par­adise: smooth-as­phalt-paved with cliff drop-offs, wind­ing around the moun­tains with tight switch­backs, and ab­solute­ly no room for mis­takes on the snow-cov­ered moun­tains.

“The moun­tains were bare of any trees and the colours of the rocks var­ied from brown to red to green and pur­ple, and a host of oth­er colours blend­ed to­geth­er. The weath­er is an­oth­er amaz­ing thing to be­hold. Some days we were rid­ing through rain, oth­er times, hail, then snow while freez­ing, all the while hav­ing dif­fi­cul­ty breath­ing the high­er we went. It was al­ti­tude sick­ness, but oth­er days were beau­ti­ful sun­shine.”

Han­iff re­called the ride to a lake called Pan­gong. She said they passed through the desert with roads made of sand, grav­el, boul­ders and rivers to avoid a ter­rain that’s con­gest­ed with ve­hic­u­lar traf­fic.

“In the process of rid­ing, I saw a fel­low rid­er take a short­cut to pass a car, and I fol­lowed right be­hind him. As soon as I crest­ed the small in­cline and looked down, the thought that went through my head was, ‘ohhh shucks, sand!’ and the next mo­ment I was on the ground with the bike on my leg.

“An­oth­er rid­er, Kel­ly, helped me get the bike off my foot, and I re­sumed rid­ing, but two of my fel­low rid­ers were not so lucky – one was hos­pi­talised for sev­er­al days due to al­ti­tude sick­ness and the oth­er in­jured his foot, pre­vent­ing him from rid­ing near the end of the trip – but the his­toric mo­ment ar­rived.”

Han­iff, with her fel­low rid­ers, rode to Um­ling La Pass, which took four hours.

“We had no choice but to use the off-road route as it snowed the pre­vi­ous night and blocked the paved road. We start­ed on grav­el and sand in the low­er por­tion and be­gan climb­ing the steep moun­tain. It be­gan rain­ing, which made the road slip­pery, com­pound­ed by snow. This in­ten­si­fied the cold­ness/wind chill. Al­ti­tude sick­ness kicked in. I re­mem­bered the right side of my brain throb­bing, and I was think­ing, ‘I hope I don’t get a stroke,’ but I kept rid­ing. Just about 30 feet to the sum­mit, I saw two of my fel­low bik­ers’ bikes on the ground. They col­lid­ed in a snow patch, but thank­ful­ly they weren’t in­jured. We even­tu­al­ly reached the sum­mit.”

She said reach­ing the sum­mit was a piv­otal time in her life.

“Stand­ing at the sum­mit was a very emo­tion­al mo­ment for me,” Han­iff re­called. “I had rid­den my steel horse to where no fe­male in my coun­try had gone be­fore, paving the way for more fe­males to fol­low their dreams and aim for the top. I am thank­ful to God for giv­ing me the strength, pa­tience, de­ter­mi­na­tion and the op­por­tu­ni­ty to achieve this his­toric ex­pe­ri­ence. It was in­deed a hum­bling ex­pe­ri­ence. This ride is not for the faint of heart or the timid, but the feel­ing of ac­com­plish­ment was worth it.”

Han­iff said the trip was her most fas­ci­nat­ing thus far. There was ex­cite­ment, fear, ex­hil­a­ra­tion, free­dom, mag­nif­i­cent scenery, adren­a­line, hap­pi­ness and scary cliff drop-offs.

“The on­ly thing that I could com­plain about was the freez­ing cold tem­per­a­tures, but I want to es­pe­cial­ly thank Lean­na from Go West Ad­ven­ture for mak­ing it pos­si­ble to ride the Hi­malayan Moun­tains of In­dia, and most im­por­tant­ly, God, for bring­ing us all home safe­ly from our ad­ven­tures.”