Month: August 2019

The lure of a forbidding mountain, with its sheets of deceptively beautiful snow, is a powerful draw for adventurers. Over the ages, countless explorers have heeded that primal call, scaling the treacherous ranges of the Himalayas. Still, there a few virgin peaks in the mountains – though no one knows how many. Japanese and British climbers were the first to organise expeditions to challenging peaks of the hill state, but in the absence of official records of explorers’ and mountaineers’ routes, the words “first ascent” and “unclimbed peak” become controversial. Easy approach to base camp and the relatively hassle-free procedure of obtaining permit make climbing expeditions in Himachal cheap and highly popular. A few peaks are more difficult to conquer than Mt Everest, a few have been scaled repeatedly and a few remain unexplored. While many peaks have good success rates, scaling attempts have remained unsuccessful for the most part on a few. Senior climber Rajeev Sharma, retired deputy director from Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Mountaineering and Allied Sports (ABVIMAS), says there are many virgin peaks in the Mulkila and Dhauladhar ranges of Himachal. “The Akela-kela near Rohtang is a virgin peak. Many have been attempted and a few are still to be explored. Some are more challenging than the Everest. A large number of peaks in Himachal were explored by the British in the 1930s and 40s. These include White Sail, Ladakhi, Hanuman Tibba and Deo Tibba. Over 100 peaks are still virgin and unnamed,” he said. Rajeev, who has scaled the Everest twice, now organises climbing expeditions. His Japanese expedition teams have scaled seven virgin peaks in Karcha Nullah and Parang-La over the past decade. The Indian Mountaineering Foundation (IMF) coordinator for Himachal says, “The IMF is creating a database of all the peaks with details of first ascents.” As it is, there is no dearth of explorers who want to go down in history as the first