Snow Cross 2010 & Extreme Offroad Conference on 6 th & 7 th Feb 2010 in Nathiagali

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Guess who ?

MOONA1 (Mansoor) frm MJC

[aamir567]

Alhamdo Lillah

We all had a wonderful session of Snow Cross & extreme Offroad conference 2010 in Nathiagali. No doubt this was the most memorable event of IJC. Everything went smoothly n we all came back safely.

Special thanx to all the participants of IJC ,4x4 Engaged , MJC , PLRC & Offroaders Unlimited. I am sure everyone must have enjoyed.

It was altogether a great display of Team Work & good coordination between Club Members as well as between all the Clubs.

Although this was our first Conference but all the clubs were fully prepared, the Presidents of all the clubs spoke well & showed thier presentations to sizeable Offroaders.

As soon as we reached Nathiagali me , Salman & local guide were in Nomi's vehicle. We asked guide which way is easy n which one is tough, he told us that track in front of Elite is easy n other one is tough. We decided to go for a tough one cas our frieds bought Snow chains & other equipments for only this tour.I am sure everyone enjoyed Snow Offroading.

@ Saleem Bhai. Thanx for the hall in Embassy Lodge to assemble for departure.

@ Rizwan Aslam. He gave best advices to all the matters concerning this event,

@ Saqib ( janj ). We talked for hours to decide all important issues to make this event a success.

@ Shabab . He was very helpful to all the friends on the field. He also looked after the accounts.

@ Shehzad . He made our presentation & helped us in all the traffic jam areas.

@ Salman . We were able to get all the discounts in Greens just because of him. He also helped us in traffic jam areas & helped us in accounts.

@ Zeb . He not only arranged BBQ but served also to all the friends n ate after wards. ( Ejaz ( Zeb's worker ) was also very helpful )

@ Ali . His knowledge is far better than me in techinical side of 4x4. Helped everyone n never got tired , rather he enjoyed every second of this tour.

@ Jehangir . He was our stage secretary n helped us in all the traffic jams. He is a very nice singer too.

@ Nadeem Naeem . He n his TLC impressed everyone .

@ Asad Marwat . Radio show n snow driving master.

@ Suhaib . Took lot of high resolution pics n helped all. He is a very nice singer too.

@ Ehsan . It needs lot of courage to drive open Willys in this type of weather

@ Imran . Ehsan's navigator n a very thorough gentleman

@ Spidy . Always impressed everyone through his photography skills.

@ Majid . Took good care of My Spidy n a very nice fellow.

@ Zuhaib . Very good offroader, helped in clearing traffic for IJC

@ Aimen . Always treat to watch ur pictures from different n difficult angles.

@ Haseeb . Made video of the event n helped in all matters.

@ Nauman . Very intelligent offroader n full of ideas. ( Thanx for the ride n discussions )

@ Umer . Thorough gentleman. Always helpful n lot of ideas.

@ Fahad & his team . MJC gang was very kind enough to help all the friends

@ Irfan Khattak & his team . Arranged Lunch at Usmania, came on Unimog & Gypsy, but left after BBQ.

@ Saidhi . True offroader

@ 4x4 engaged team . Fully equiped with all the gadgets.

@ Greens Hotel . Good management

@ Ehsan Kiani . Very much concerned about this tour n helped in arranging this event.

@ Rizwan Syed . Arranged BBQ chicken n helped in arranging this event.

@ Nazir Abbasi . He was the Chief Guest. He is IJC's member also. Helped in many matters specially arranged tractor n manpower for clearing snow.

@ Ibrar Rashid ( GEO ) . He is a very nice singer. Arranged our activities to be on GEO News. Hope fully a small documentry in few days.

@ All . Missed all our friends n members who could not joined us due to their prior commitments.

Forgive me if i missed anyone

Thanx once again

[RetardedBuddy]

amir bhai plz update the time when it airs

[aamir567]

amir bhai plz update the time when it airs

As soon as i get the info, will update here

[raohamid]

Aimen, mashallah! Just saw some of your photos on the IJC website, some of the best post processing work I have seen. Excellent work on the photos, keep it up!

RKR

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Another excellent trip with all our fellow off-roaders. By the Grace of Almighty the whole trip remained incident free. I am sure everyone had a great time. Excellent team spirit and friendliness was seen through-out the trip between all members/ participants on this trip.

Timekeeping was asusal not adhered to the first morning, keeping up the tradition of true Pakistanis. We were supposed to leave at 09:30 sharp on Saturday morning, but we left after 11. Would add here that it definitely added to the fun of the trip. For me, I got up at 06:30 because of the excitement of the trip (don’t laugh, you can still get excited at my age, and anyway I am still young!:D).

We reached Nathiagali just after 4pm. As we were booked to stay at Greens hotel, which is almost at the top of the area with a narrow steep twisted road. The road was full of snow n sleet. So we started to go up the road at around 04:30pm. Only two vehicles from our group had snow chains. One being me, and while I was putting snow chains on, every one started the climb, so I was left last, and that’s where the fun began. Everyone was twisting and sliding everywhere. The help, the patience, the guidance, the digging, the effort from everyone was remarkable. It must have been, because we reached Greens Hotel after 10pm, so over five hours for less than 3 km and everyone was still very excited and in high spirits. The bonfire arranged by 4x4 engaged gang was lovely and enjoyed by all on reaching Green.
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It was a great trip, full of fun laughter n joy. It was very nice to have met members from various clubs/ groups. Don’t remember the names or IDs of many, but thank you all, everyone made a difference there and hope to see all in the next trip again! It was great chatting to you Saqib and to you as well Qasim.
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@Bugsy, if I can get Qasim to company me next time, I will let him put snow chains on before we leave and let him change the wheels when necessary, and I will make sure to take a snap of him while doing it :D
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@Rao, thanks but no thanks, I think I will somehow manage to live with this beastJ. By the way I think you owed either a dinner or some money to Deedee, as he gave away your top speed.
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My thnx to the entire IJC group for making this lovely trip possible, each one did more than the other. The IJC members who could not come on this trip for various reasons, you were all missed.

A special mention of Black-op is necessary as without his help I wouldn’t have got snow chains (an absolute must for this kind of travel), which made my life incredibly easy and thankfully we managed all steep inclines on the first attempt like a breeze at every part of the snow, making the LC look like a star!! :-)
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I can see brilliant snaps post by many already, great work guys!

[ehsankiani]

@Bugsy
Wonderful photos and commentary.
@ Aimen.
Lovely pictures indeed.. You covered the whole event yar.. Hats off
@ Aamir bhai
Thank you for the nice words.
Ehsan

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Either my reply earlier was edited or I didn't cut n paste properly, but here we go again, repasting the rest again:-)

My co-passengers were brilliant, they kept smiling even when I was pulling their leg, may be they were being respectful of my age, or maybe they were scared that I would chuck them out them out of the comfortable heated vehicle. (I am comfortably bigger than all three of my co-passengers combined)
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Due to change of travelling plan we first went to Abbotabad, reaching there at lunch time. Met up with Abbotabad off-road club and MJC members there. We had lunch at Usmania restaurant. Finally we (all three clubs vehicles) left from Abbotabad for Nathiagali. The snow was around us from midway onwards. The snow covered mountains on either side looked lovely.
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There was plenty snow on the road as well for me to keep the LC in 2WD and do power slides and as spidy would put it (<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Tokyo</st1:place></st1:City> drifts). It was good fun doing such controlled slides. Desert Devil and Fobak have some vdo’s of the LC shaking its rear with pleasure!!
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The yummmmy part, the really lovely barbeque arranged by IJC, with Black-Op being the major man behind arranging and also in cooking. The weather, the environment, the company were all excellent. Everyone was so relaxed, chit chatting and enjoying the hot BBQ.
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The vdo presentations by 4X4 engaged and IJC were Zabardast and so were the inspiratory talks given by the presidents of relevant clubs (although we did find few members, surprisingly younger ones nodding off in the middle, although must be fair it was well past midnight by than.
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The planned musical fun initially seemed to be fizzing away, when many were too tired and headed for the comfort of their cosy room, but we managed to get Jahangir and Sohaib pumped up with their guitars. What followed till almost after 4am was absolute great fun. Jahangir, I had already had the pleasure of listening to during the Noori Top expedition, he was Zabardast as usual. Sohaib with his electrical guitar played Zabardast music and sang beautifully. And than we had the Hamnawa/ Chorus singing along including Shabab, Salman, Zohaib, Ahsan and me of course. I made a brief vdo of the chorus and must confess we made absolutely pathetic chorus singers! Jahangir and Sohaib were most gracious even when we (especially Untamed Shabab) absolutely slaughtered the songs with our own verses (will leave that to everyone imagination…..). When Jahangir put on Beeri Song on IPod, Shabab was almost itching to get up and dance, but unfortunately didn’t. I suppose age is catching up with him, after all he crossed his 40<SUP>th</SUP> last week. Otherwise would have seen some quality dancing moves …….
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Next day, got up really early 7ish, less than 3 hours sleep, I thought I should take pics myself in clear snow, but it remained so cloudy throughout. Just checked if my LC would start and it did, just as usual with less than a full crank. Petrol engine … Hip Hip Hooray! Janj was up early as well, He started his Cherokee as well, later we discussed 4X4s over hot cup of tea, and Aqib from 4X4 engaged also joined us by that time.
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Helped Jump Start some of diesel vehicles, and started packing my stuff back in the car. At 11:00 woke up the lazy youngsters in my room who had gone to sleep before 2am. I suppose they were catching up on their beauty sleep. All had a nice hot breakfast (at lunch time) of Parathas n omelette with hot cup of tea or two.
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Than the good byes started to other club members. Everyone packed, I missed the group photo as was trying to get someone jump started in the background.
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Downhill from Greens, I lead the way in my LC. Couple of Guys gave interview to Geo when we got down. Took off the snow chains and than we left back for ISB via Murree route. That was an epic journey as well (so to speak) with black ice, cars (and people) were slipping around like mad, and traffic was stuck. Immense coordination and initiative was shown by many members by walking on foot while it was snowing and clearing the way for all of us. The best bit was when the people who were clearing the road for all in front got all cars to go past, they themselves were all left behind! With me being last we got all 5 of them to stand on the side foot boards of LC, all holding a wireless radios in their hands and shouting at cars to move out of the way giving the impression that we were some official / ministerial staff car, and it worked, got through like a breeze…… only to be stuck again 10 minutes later in another Jam, but we did it again…..!!!
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Stopped over for a brief lunch of Daal Roti at Khaira Gali. And guess what…. We encountered another jam…. And than another. Finally got to Murree after dark and all left back for ISB via expressway. Initially I was planning the elderly type role of staying back of all the group, but when Desert Devil asked us to pass him as he was staying last, I gave LC plenty gas, one by one we gobbled all of them up, only Charged brothers (Omer driving) showed some resistance, but couldn’t withstand the might of 1FZ-FE for long. As Ali said it was great fun run and probably a bit silly, as we hit well over three figure speed several times in the rain on a twisty road. And like all things in life the fun came to a very abrupt end when we got into a 3 km long queue in Barakahu due to a security check post barriers…….which wasn’t even being monitored at the time……L

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I m going to upload pics in sequence starting from Muzaffarabad to Nathiagali.

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