Trek and Climb with RAJA

The Curious Case of De Nga View from the ridge above Longdo Nye (Panch Pokhri) lakes Explorations on the watershed between Lachen chu and Ringi chu, North Sikkim Text: Anindya Mukherjee Photos: Aloke Kumar Das It was the third week of November,2015 and Kolkata was showing no signs of cooling down. Autumn was clearly gone and winter was still hesitating to enter into our space. Being gangetic, we understand this. Winter and Bay of Bengal are eternally engaged in a ‘cold’ war. Just like us Bengalis, they do not agree with each other- ever. But I could see and sense from experience that the weather pattern in the eastern part of the Himalaya was moving towards a clearer, stable state. News of new snow on the ridges of Singalila was bringing promises. I was getting restless. Long time, no mountain! And suddenly a plan was in the air.   As soon as the plan did surface, I met Aloke Das, my companion on Nanda Devi East   in 2013 [1] . I knew, Aloke, a senior mounta...

An alpine style attempt on Peak Lenin 7134m Text and Photos: Athol Jake Preston and Anindya Mukherjee Summary: In August 2016, two friends, Athol Jake Preston (Australia) and Anindya Mukherjee (India) decided to rope up and climb the 7134m high Pik/Peak Lenin [1] by its north-west ridge (Razdelnaya route) in the Pamir Mountains of Central Asia in carry-camp and climb style, unsupported by porters or guides. They had to turn back from their summit camp (6148m) due to a heavy snow storm. Peak Lenin from Base Camp Achik Tash  “All big mountains are potentially dangerous; like fast cars they must be treated with respect. Yet if one uses common sense they can be traversed and enjoyed with impunity. The two popular ranges ...the Caucasus and the Pamir, are high and subject to violent storms. Also being marooned in a vast land mass they can be grippingly cold.”-Hamish Macinnes   “In 1974 the objectives were ambitious-nothing less than an alpine-style cli...

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...