When our six-member team of mountaineers from “The Himalayan Club”, accompanied by a cinematographer, set out from Rongdo, a quaint village in Ladakh, we had no idea of our final destination of where we would eventually land up. We had on a map, an audacious plan to traverse the Eastern […]
In 1922 Ireland’s bid for independence was ratified and as a result about four fifths of the island of Ireland severed political ties with Great Britain. Up to that year any mountaineering feat by an Irish man or woman could be legitimately claimed as a British achievement. As a result of this, […]
Introduction This is the second of two articles describing exploration of the glaciers on the south-eastern flanks of Kanchenjunga. The previous article covers the South Simvu glacier, which was not even on maps until 1955; this is on the exploration of the Zumthul Phuk glacier and its legendary Rock Needles. […]
“Maps, if caviare[1] to the general, are, as Louis Stevenson has insisted, very suggestive to persons with proper imagination.” – Douglas Freshfield, Round Kangchenjunga, p-20 Story of maps and an invisible glacier For the last few years I have been trying to explore the valleys and glaciers of the south-eastern […]
Summary: During my first visit in 2001 to the Lepcha villages of north Sikkim and especially Dzongu1, I heard about a short, bipedal, hairy, shy creature living in the forest. They called it “Bon Manchi”, literally ‘man of forest’. This was enough to fuel my imagination and influenced my decision […]
Page 15 of the Times of India dated April 20, 2014 has a picture on the centre of the page. The caption reads “A Sherpa is comforted by a relative as she mourns the death of her father, one of the 13 Nepalese guides killed in the avalanche on Mount […]
Mid-November 2013. American Centre, New Delhi. Soon after a presentation by John Gans, Executive Director of the US-based National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), the floor was opened to a brief question and answer (Q&A) session. The former chief of an Indian mountaineering institute stood up and made an offer for […]