GREATER HEIGHTS

The Hyundai Great India Drive 2022 saw us searching for the top of the world in the new Tucson

I’m happy to announce that I’ve now been invited to participate in Hyundai’s annual Great India Drive for the second year in a row. Based on the itinerary sent, I had assumed the 2022 GID — the sixth edition of the event — would be a more rough and tough experience. We were to take the recently launched Hyundai Tucson up to Kargil, through the Zojila Pass. It wasn’t meant to be too challenging a drive — mid-November doesn’t usually get icy and snowy, and the Tucson, especially the AWD version with the HTRAC system, is touted to be quite capable.

We were flagged off from the Taj Dal lake in Srinagar — the stunning view from the hotel in the glow of the rising sun made me want to circle back to the lake later — and headed towards Sonamarg, which was about two hours away. It wasn’t an arduous drive, but the scenery got better and better. I was surprised by the sheer amount of snow-capped peaks. I know, these are the Himalayas, but the quantities of it this early in autumn came as a surprise. We were told that it’s been a little unseasonably cold, and that might make the passage to Kargil impassable.

We lounged in Sonamarg as the sun began to set early, and there was even talk of maybe settling down there for the night, which was disappointing. I was excited to drive through snow and on ice for the first time, and the Tucson I was driving (and the 10-car strong convoy we were in) should be able to help me where my skills failed, so I wasn’t worried. It was after the sun had set, around 5:30 pm that we got the go-ahead to get in our cars and hot-step it to the Zojila Pass.

The traction devices we had carried, just in case