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Sundardhunga Khal – The Goddess Keeps her Secret

Sundardhunga Khal – The Goddess Keeps her Secret George W Rodway and Anindya Mukherjee The Sundardhunga Khal and our route of attempt in 2015 The History Locating a practicable route into the Nanda Devi Sanctuary occupied a very respectable amount of exploration time and effort in the latter half of the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century. By the time W.W. Graham made spring and autumn journeys to Sikkim and spent the summer in the Kumaun region around Nanda Devi in 1883, a shift had just started towards looking to the Himalaya as a venue for sporting adventure. Graham and the Swiss guides that accompanied him this year planned an ambitious itinerary for their time in Kumaun. They attempted to penetrate, for the first time in recorded history, the Rishiganga gorge with an eye to ascending Nanda Devi. Not surprisingly the difficulty of the gorge, not infiltrated to its source (after many attempts) until 1934, forced them to reconsider the wis...
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Zemu Gap from south: the first documented ascent

view of Kangchenjunga south summit and Talung peaks from Tongshyong glacier. Pic. Anindya Mukherjee Text & Photographs: Anindya Mukherjee Introduction The history of exploration around Kangchenjunga [1] , especially around its south, south east and east flanks; has always fascinated me. The classic journeys and adventures of pioneers [2] like W.W. Graham, John Claude White, Douglas Freshfield, Dr. A.M. Kellas, Harold Raeburn, N.A.Tombazi, Lord John Hunt and Paul Bauer ignited my imagination. The height of inspiration of course came from reading my hero Mr. H.W. Tilman’s account in the Himalayan Journal (vol. IX) on his attempt on Zemu Gap from south in 1936. The primary challenge of climbing Zemu Gap from south has always been its remote & complicated approach. Many failed just to reach the foot of this col. To add to that its apparently impregnable defenses took Zemu Gap to a next level of exploratory climbing. In 1925, Greek photographer N.A.Tombazi is sai...
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A Happy Ascent of Satopanth in 2016- A report

A Happy Ascent of Satopanth 7075m Summary: In September 2016, a small group of climbers from India and Germany climbed Satopanth (7075m) and an unnamed 6008m peak by the traditional routes in semi alpine style and without using any fixed rope on its famous north-east ridge-north face route.  Text and Photos: Anindya Mukherjee Satopanth from Sundar Bamak, photo: Anindya Mukherjee ~~~~~~~~ The happy climber, like the aged Ulysses, is one who has “drunk delight of battle with his peers”, and this delight is only attainable by assaulting cliffs which tax to their utmost limits of the powers of the mountaineers engaged. This struggle involves the same risk, whether early climbers attacked what we now call easy rock, or whether we moderns attack formidable rock, or whether the ideal climber of the future assaults cliffs which we now regard as hopelessly inaccessible. -A.F.Mummery [1] ~~~~~~~~ Snow coated the mountain range and one mountain in particular. All of...
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