Indians Rewriting Everest History – Everest 2012

Four bravehearts from Maharashtra became the first Indians to summit Mt Everest this climbing season while another 80 Indian climbers are waiting on the lower slopes for their turn.

Four members of the Sagarmatha Giryarohan Expedition from Maharashtra summited the world’s highest peak, once virtually barred to private groups due to lack of funding, at 6.45 a.m. Saturday, said the team’s guide and Everest hero from Hyderabad, Shekhar Babu Bacchinepally.

“This expedition is dedicated to Ramesh Gulave,” said Shekhar, whose ascent in 2007 as an individual climber unsupported by any organisations inspired dozens of Indian Everest aspirants subsequently.

Gulave developed breathing troubles and other health complications last month after the expedition had flagged off and had to be airlifted to Kathmandu and flown to India for medical treatment. He died on April 27.

Shrihari Tapkir, a 28-year-old avid trekker and climber from Wadmukhwadi village in Pune, was one of the four summiters.

Tapkir is also one of the founders of the Sagarmatha Girayarohan Sanstha at Bhosari, which is now one of the leading adventure clubs in Pune.

Accompanying the ordnance factory employee on the 8,848 m peak were Sagar Palkar, 27, from Chinchwad, Balaji Mane, 34, from latur district, and Anand Bansode, 27, from Solapur.

Bansode also set a new Guinness World Record for playing music on the highest altitude with a concert at camp II of Mt Everest on May 6, at a height of 6,300 meters.

“It was a financial challenge,” said Shekhar. “Most of the climbers took personal loans while the rest of the money came from individual donors and a few groups.

“Most corporates shied away from offering sponsorship, thinking it would cost them Rs.3-4 million per climber.

“However, the boys did it on a shoe-strong budget of Rs.1.5 million per climber.”

Shekhar himself had been a shoe-string Everest conqueror who owned his boots to the Indian Army expedition at that time as well as weather forecast reports.

If the weather holds, the Pune boys will make another go later this week.

Also waiting in the lower camps are three institutional Indian teams: from the army, Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and Nehru Mountaineering Institute, Darjeeling.

While 62 Indian climbers are following the route from the south through Nepal, there are nearly 20 more Indian climbers pushing ahead from the Tibet side.

The Pune boys shared their feat with another record creator Saturday.

Tamae Watanabe from Japan became the oldest woman to tame the mountain.

The 73-year-old, who reached the top as leader of the Asian Trekking International Everest Expedition 2012, along with Noriyuki Muraguchi, also from Japan, recreated her own record.

Ten years ago, she had strode to the top to become the then oldest woman to stand there at 63.

India lost an opportunity for another record earlier this month with Delhi teenager Arjun Vajpai being forced to abandon his twin goal in China after developing breathing problems.

The 18-year-old, who holds the record for being the youngest Indian to summit Mt Everest, is now trying to become the first Indian to tame all 14 “Death Zone” peaks in the world towering above 8,000 meters.

He has summited Mt lhotse and Mt Manaslu besides Mt Everest but his attempts on Mt Shishapangma and Mt Cho Oyu, the 14th and sixth highest peaks in the world respectively, had to be called off.

The teen took it stoically.

“A good mountaineer is the one who is able to return back safely from the heights,” he said. “The mountains are always there, it’s not the mountains that one conquers but oneself.”

Source:IANS

 

Epic Day for Indian Mountaineering – Everest 2012

 First time in History of India Civil expeditions from India announced the success. A dozen civilian mountaineers from Pune today reached the summit of Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain at 8,848-metres. Sagarmatha Giryarohan Sanstha and Giripremi – the two Pune groups – announced success of their respective expeditions on their Facebook pages.  However Ramesh Gulave succumb to death from Sagarmatha Giryarohan Sanstha due to AMS.

Mr. Ramesh Gulave

Eight climbers from Giripremi, including Tekraj Adhikari and Krishna Dhokale, and four from Sagarmatha Giryarohan – Shrihari Tapkir, Sagar Palkar, Balaji Mane and Anand Bansode – reached the summit from the ‘South Col’ route, from Nepal.

This is the first time that civilian mountaineering expeditions have scaled the peak.

 

Mount Everest 2012

The Tourism Ministry has issued climbing permit to scale the Mount Everest, the world highest peak,to 32 teams consisting 337 climbers (325 foreigners) for this spring. Of the climbers who were issued the permit, 49 are female.

Mt. Everest

With the surge in the number of prospective climbers, the government’s royalty too has increased impressively. The ministry collected Rs 262.9 million in royalty from this spring’s Everest expedition. “Appreciation of the US dollar against the Nepali rupee also helped augment the royalty this year,” a report by the Kathmandu Post quoted Tilak Pandey, liaison officer at the ministry’s Industry Division.

Mountaineering is considered as high-value tourism, and the government annually collects around Rs 200 million in royalty from Everest expeditions alone. Last spring, the government collected Rs 170 million from 26 expedition teams consisting 251 foreign climbers.

The royalty for climbing Everest ranges from $15,000 to $70,000 per expedition, depending on the number of expedition members (maximum seven) and the route. For an expedition having a maximum of 15 members, a fee of $10,000 per person is charged. According to the ministry, it received the highest number of applications from the US followed by India and the UK.

This spring’s expedition is expected to start from the first week of May if the weather favours climbers. All mountaineers have left for the Khumbu region to spend time on the lower reaches of the Himalaya for acclimatisation. “Some mountaineers have reached to Everest Base Camps while some are on their way to acclimatising themselves,” said Pandey.

Over 3,000 climbers have scaled Everest since it was first conquered by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Sherpa in 1953, according to official data.

 

1996 Everest Disaster Survivor Retraces Climb to Make Peace with the Mountain

Back then, Beidleman was working as a guide under his close friend and seasoned mountaineer Scott Fischer. Fischer died on that mountain and was buried there. Beidleman said he never truly understood what happened and that the tragedy nagged at him.

Neal Beidleman with Everest Photographs

Fingers were pointed in numerous directions and many were blamed for what happened that day but there were only words of praise for Beidleman, who went up as a mountaineer and came down a hero. Beidleman himself doesn’t see it that way.

For years, Beidleman was in high demand to speak about the lessons he had learned on Everest, about team building, about taking risks and living with the consequences, and about how disasters are rarely caused by one single action or one single person but often a cascading series of bad luck and bad choices. He also talked about second chances.On Everest, even the smallest of details matter. Every footstep holds the possibility of disaster.

It’s the kind of place where really catastrophic things can happen and you can’t see them coming.Part of the problem is the air. At altitudes like this — the Everest peak in 29,028 feet — the oxygen is so thin the brain gets foggy and judgments cloud.