Panchuli

The Panchachuli peaks are a group of five snow-capped Himalayan peaks lying at the end of the eastern Kumaon region, near Dugtu Village of Darma valley. The peaks have altitudes ranging from 6,334 metres (20,781 ft) to 6,904 metres (22,651 ft).

They form the watershed between the Gori and the Darmaganga valleys. Located in the easternmost part of Uttarakhand, Darma Valley shares its borders with Tibet and Nepal.

Our expedition was called multi-dimensional as it aimed to climb all five peaks of the Panchchuli massif, ski down from its slopes, para glide from its peak/slopes as feasible and to raft down Kali river.

As the deputy leader of the expedition, I led the successful climb to Panchchuli I and II and the rafting expedition on Kali river. This was also the first mix multi dimensional expedition wherein both male and female members of the team took part in all dimensions of the expedition. We also skiied down the slopes of Panchchuli.

I and two of our team members did para glide from the slopes of the mountain.
The climb on Panchchuli III, IV and V was aborted after an unfortunate incident on the climb to Panchchuli III. Our second team was well on its way to the summit, when one of the team member accidently tripped his crampon and fell down the steep ice slope. The four members of the team were roped up and the sudden fall disrupted their precarious balance on crampons and all of them slipped together gliding past open crevasses and tumbling and bumping into each other and all of them were grievously injured by repeated jamming of crampon points into each other. More than injury to the body, the nerve breaking fall took us all by surprise and shocked the team members for sometime to come.

Fortunately, my team at Panchchuli I was closer than other team members at Base Camp to come to their rescue before they could be safely evacuated. As if this was not enough, the spate of bad luck continued for some more time. Our team was caught in a snow storm on its descent from Panchhuli II and though reached the camp safely but were trapped in our tents for next 3 days due to extremely heavy snowfall and recurring avalanches all around us.

Having run out of rations and batteries to communicate with the base camp, we were forced to attempt climb down to base camp in complete whiteout conditions. Due to heavy snowfall, the route was not visible and massive load of fresh snow on steep slopes prompted frequent avalanches.

We had our share of avalanches as our team came under one soon after leaving the camp relieving some of us of our boots, goggles, broken rucksacks and a massive shake up to our confidence.

As if this was not enough, just half an hour later, we triggered a slab avalanche giving us first-hand experience of witnessing the snow and ice beneath our crampons sliding into the deep chasm. Only the sheer luck held our crampons in contact with some of the ice left and we managed to pull ourselves to safety, sweating profusely in the near blizzard conditions.

After couple of hours of beating around the bush aka snow, by sheer coincidence some clouds parted to show us the way and we could reach the safety of base camp, battered, shaken but not beaten.



A memorable experience and a reassurance of the mercies bestowed on us.