Satopanth

Mt Satopanth at 7075 M is one the very prominent and popular peak in Garhwal Himalayas. The mountain was first climbed in 1947.

Lately the mountain has become quite famous for its Pre-Everest expeditions, because of the variety of mature technicalities that she boasts of; like Her majestic altitude, the daunting ‘knife ridge’ at 6500m and lots of technical Ice and rock glacial negotiations at 5900 m.

We climbed this peak in 2008 and true to its reputation, it was a challenging climb. The general area of Nandanvan ahead of Gomukh gives an impression of walking in an amphitheatre of densely packed snow-clad peaks. Both east and west flanks of Chaturangi.

Glacier are frequented by both trekkers and climbers due to number of well-known and challenging peaks like Bhagirathi group and Satopanth on one side and Meru and Thalay Sagar on the other side.

Other prominent peaks close to it are Kedarnath, Shivling and Chaukhamba. To climb this peak, we drove till the famous Gangotri temple site at Gangotri ahead of Uttarkashi in Garhwal region of Uttarakhand. Thereafter, it’s a pleasant trek through jungles of birch and pine along the Bhagirathi river all the way till Gomukh, the origin of river Ganges.

We stayed here for a day to acclimatise and wash away our sins by taking a dip in the cold waters of the holy river. This place is very popular with both trekkers and those with religious bent of mind who come to look for peace and salvation. After taking the blessings of Lal Baba who has an ashram near Gomukh, we trekked across jumble of rocks and ever moving morain filled Gangotri glacier towards Nandanvan. Here the route takes a westerly turn towards Chaturangi Glacier which goes till the base of Kalindi Pass, over which one can trek to Badrinath temple.

The route ahead of Nandanvan goes over a ridge created due to churning of glacier and after couple of hours of trek, it turns sharply to north leading to Satopanth lake which serves as base camp for the expedition.

Base Camp next to a lake is definitely a luxury in a mountaineering expedition as it saves a colossal effort of fetching water from some source or melting snow/ice. In all, three camps were established before making the summit attempt. Camp I was located on the glacier on a broken and moraines mix of rock and ice.

Slightly uncomfortable to sleep on though. It took usually 5-6 hrs to reach this location from the base camp. The route to Camp II was steep over snow and ice and involved a bit of rope fixing too. Camp was located at a Col from where the route takes southerly turn over the knife ridge. This camp was quite exposed and windy and obviously cold. The route ahead to Camp III is the toughest part of the expedition as it goes over a gradually climbing but knife sharp ridge with steep falls on either side.

There is barely enough place to put the foot. The ridge is about a kilometre long and takes about 3 hours to tackle due to lack of space to walk on and the perpetual risk of falling over.

We did fix some ropes to make it reasonably safe for all team members to negotiate it. At the immediate end of the knife ridge, the camp is pitched on a slope of ice by cutting flat platforms. This camp is quite uncomfortable due to cold and wind and to some the effects of climb and altitude also start bothering here.
We spend some uncomfortable hours here and left for summit attempt around 1 AM in moonlit slope ahead. Here onwards, it is quite a steep slope but due to cold temperatures the snow is compact and relatively easy to walk using crampons.

We trudged on throughout the night with few stops to adjust the headlamp, the crampons and have a brief rest. After about 8 hrs of continuous push, we could reach few paces short of the actual summit.
However, it is not worth going ahead as a deep crevasse cuts across the route horizontally and risking to negotiate it for the last few steps to the summit was not considered worth the risk. The same is done by previous expeditions as well. So, after the group photo of the team, offering of sweets to the abode of god, on each and every peak and offering of prayers we came down slowly and safely all the way to Base Camp.

Satopanth will always remain a dream climb mainly due to the experience of long climb over the knife sharp ridge and its pictures will remind us all of our good fortune for times to come.