Thursday, October 15, 2009

Pt 5350 In Lieu Of Palung - Sikkim Himalayas



We had originally planned for a peak called Palung which stands at 6086m. The trek from Yuksom to Bakhim to Dzongri to Chowrikhang was uneventful except that a couple of the guys were breathless. We did the load ferry to the advanced base camp in 3 shifts. Twice for the ration and finally after a days rest we headed to move base with our gear including tents. Unfortunately after the load ferry and all the hard work, it turned so cold that the water froze. Fortunately some of the folks had cool heads on their shoulders and decided to summit a virgin isolated point which stood at 17500 ft (about 5400m). we ferried all the ration and our gear in one go to Chowrikhang and then the following day we ferried the same load to the Kabru Glacier which is located about 4 kms from Chorikhang sitting pretty at about 16500 feet. We had to ferry a little less since the porters and cooks ferried some of the stuff from the Palung base camp. In 4 days after some glacier training we did successfully ascend the virgin point.

The pt offered a stunning view of the Rahtong glacier and the peaks in the vicinity. Although the failure to summit Palung was a heartbreaker; the virgin ascent was a face saver.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Sikkim Via Darjeeling



An arduous trek to Base Camp at Chowrikhang via Bakhim and Dzongri in Sikkim. Height gain on Rinok (About 5000m ASL). Mountaineering is pretty cool.