I Drove The Renault Kiger To Umling La

When Renault invited me to attend their Ladakh drive, I was a little perplexed and I had my reasons for it. Renault intended to take their entire product portfolio to the magical landscape of Ladakh, including Umling La, the highest motorable pass in the world. Having phased out the Duster and Captur, the currently portfolio consists of the Kwid, Triber and Kiger; all of them equipped with 1.0 litre small capacity engines. I was not wrong in thinking that this idea might be a little far fetched. The high altitude and the lack of oxygen at higher altitude was going to test man and machine to their limit, but I embarked on the journey on a positive note.

A short trip to Ladakh means barely any time to acclimatize and trust me, this is as real as it gets. I know many who go there thinking, how hard can it be? The struggle to breathe is real and Renault gave us two days in Leh just to acclimatize to the higher altitude. The third day we set off for Pangong Tso. To ensure that we were taken care of, Renault had a lead and sweep car with experienced motorsport guys who had years of experience in the mountains. There was a recovery vehicle and an ambulance too, God forbid if things went south. Pangong Tso is situated at 14,300 feet above main sea level, bollywood flick ‘3 Idiots’ made it famous back in the 2000’s.

Pangong lake is huge and about 30% of its area is in India, while the rest 70% is in China. It is a highly sensitive area with a heavy military presence. Pangong Tso is known for the colour of water which appears to be blue, green and even red depending upon the direction of the sun. I had chosen to drive the Kiger for this entire drive. Since the Kiger has a Turbo, it would be the most challenging car to drive in this scenario. The difficult part would be keeping the engine in the turbo band as climbing steep slopes would get difficult. Also, if you do not keep it in the turbo band, the engine would bog down and make it difficult to keep up the momentum. It was precisely this challenge which made me want to drive this car.

The drive to Pangong was not very challenging as the climb was not that steep and gradual, except when we crossed Chang La – the tenth highest motorable pass in the world. The cars did struggle a bit while climbing and had to ensure we moved up to the third gear to prevent engine overheating. Renault were smart not to get their AMT cars for this drive as they would have most likely given up, besides manuals are more predictable to drive. We stayed at Pangong for the night and started towards Hanle the next day.

This stretch had a lot of off-road patches and the high ground clearance came to the rescue here. We stopped at Rezang La Memorial on our way and were astounded on the stories of bravery our Army displayed in the 1962 war. Here onwards mobile network was very sparse and we would only get network when we could be crossing an army base. Hanle is situated at approximately 14,800 feet above sea level and is known for an observatory it houses. This observatory works with ISRO on various projects. Hanle also has very clear skies owning to its altitude and is a famous spot for stargazing. Even the topography is different from what we had encountered thus far, you get to see grassy fields here. We stayed the night at Hanle and began the most challenging leg of the journey the next day.

The road to Umling La was steep and the cars were at their limits. Due to a lack of oxygen at higher altitude, one could hear the engine straining. The views were to die for. We took a small stop for lunch and kept moving. It had become very overcast and rain was going to follow soon. Rain was expected but what caught us totally by surprise for the seasons first snowfall. For someone who stays in hot and humid Mumbai, the snowfall was nothing short of a surreal experience. It was getting cold but we were comfortable inside the car. The climb got steeper and steeper and finally we made it to the top – Umling La, the highest motorable pass in the world. It was a feeling of accomplishment and pride, was also overwhelming at the same time as well.

This was a hardcore test of man and machine, fortunately both made it without any major issues. Standing tall at 19,300 feet above main sea level with temperatures at around -2 degrees felt amazing. As I previously mentioned, it sounds crazy to me, but the whole concept of taking small capacity cars to such high altitudes is simply insane, but at the same it was a test of confidence in Renault’s products. All three models – the Kiger, the Triber and the Kwid made it without any mechanical issues, overheating or any other problems. This was indeed the first time a manufacturer has taken their entire line up to Umling La, a feat to be remembered for sometime and an inspiration for other manufacturers to do something similarly out of the box.