In August 2017, former pastor Maxwell Frost and friend David Deaton left California, starting a two-month, 3,500-mile bicycle ride on the world’s most treacherous road. They rode into the Himalayas, hoping to close the worst chapters of their lives.
Several years earlier, Frost found himself in the midst of a disastrous string of events. Abruptly, his career ended, he lost his twin daughters at birth and subsequently went through a divorce from his wife. His life, officially bottomed-out beyond repair.
When he met David Deaton, who was also recovering from an abrupt career loss, the conversation turned to the dream of travelling to the Himalayas. They were desperate to put some distance between themselves and their recent experiences.
“This trip was me drawing a line in the sand,” explains Frost, “I was going to stop living in the past and begin living for the future.”
One year later, Deaton and Frost were on a plane headed for the world’s most treacherous road, the Hindustan-Tibet Road, National Highway 22. It took 48 hours to get from Los Angeles to Shimla. They spent their first night on a bench in downtown Delhi, waiting for a bus. The next morning in Shimla, the trip began. Following the entire northern border of India towards Pakistan and back, they started pedalling, intent to complete one big loop of the Indian Himalayas.
The first day was riddled with problems, as Deaton’s bicycle chain kept breaking. Fortunately, sometimes a broken chain can lead to good things. When the chain popped a second time in front of an apple farm, local farmers invited the two weary friends for tea. They spent the night there and then another, so that they could take part in a birthday celebration.
“It ended up being 40 dudes and the best dance party of my life… bottles of whiskey just kept evaporating, and we were going all night long,” says Frost. Despite an open invitation to stay, the friends continued on. Miles and days passed.
Disaster struck again on a long stretch of downhill. Frost was leading with Deaton following close behind. Taking in the panoramic view from 16,000 feet, Frost checked back to see if everything was fine, but the road behind him was empty. There was no sign of Deaton.
Frost started pedalling back up the mountain, where a motorcyclist gave him news of Deaton. “Your friend... his shoulder is pretty messed up, but he is still alive.” Relieved, Frost pedalled back for two hours before reaching Deaton. A broken collar bone in the Himalayas can be devastating and with no cars or help in sight, the friends tended to the wounds and opened an emergency bottle of whiskey. They finally found a ride and it took 12-and-a-half hours for Deaton to receive medical care after the accident. A local doctor set his arm in a brace and sling, not without first urging him to seek medical care from a ‘real’ expert!
As Deaton could no longer ride his bike, he bought a horse and named it Bicycle. “David rode the horse the first two days and then the horse said no more, so he ended up walking the horse,” Frost recalls. Once the road was too tough for the pack horse, Deaton gave Bicycle to a family and continued by bus.
With only a couple of days remaining to complete the loop, the friends were hit with more bad news. One of Deaton’s friends unexpectedly died and Deaton flew home, leaving Frost to finish the trip alone.
Exhausted and out of money, Frost endured the last few days alone, pedalling back to the bus stop in Delhi where he’d spend his first night. He had left America with a Himalayan dream, seeking an experience big enough to end the most traumatic year of his life. But was it worth it? “It is just now becoming a good idea that we went at all. The more removed you get, you look back and realise that it was pretty amazing,” Frost admits.
