Pune:
Giripremi, a city-based mountaineering group, claims to have set a mark by ascending Mt Meru South from its difficult west face for the first time. The Pune-based team successfully climbed Mt Meru South, a 6660-meter-high summit in the Garhwal Himalayas that is regarded as one of the most challenging mountains to scale.
The expedition was led by mountaineers from the Giripremi Mountaineering Club in collaboration with the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering in Uttarkashi.
After a successful ascent, Giripremi’s Ganesh
Pune:
Giripremi, a city-based mountaineering group, claims to have set a mark by ascending Mt Meru South from its difficult west face for the first time. The Pune-based team successfully climbed Mt Meru South, a 6660-meter-high summit in the Garhwal Himalayas that is regarded as one of the most challenging mountains to scale.
The expedition was led by mountaineers from the Giripremi Mountaineering Club in collaboration with the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering in Uttarkashi.
After a successful ascent, Giripremi’s Ganesh More, Vivek Shivade, Varun Bhagwat, Mingma Sherpa, Vinod Gusain, senior instructor, NIM, Uttarkashi, and his colleagues Bihari Rana and Ajit Rawat unfurled the Indian tricolour at the summit of Mt Meru.
Umesh Zirpe, a seasoned mountaineer, led the expedition. While Sherpas Dawa Sherpa and Furtensing Sherpa scaled the mountain with the Giripremi team, Lakpa Sherpa assisted the expedition by climbing to Camp 1 while experts from NIM extended their guidance and support to the expedition.
For this expedition, the necessary permissions were taken from the Indian Mountaineering Foundation, an apex body in India to provide permission for such expeditions, and from the Wildlife Division of Uttrakhand Forest Department.
“Mt. Meru is always known as the most challenging mountain to climb, even more challenging than Mt Everest. There are three peaks of Mt. Meru- South is 6,660 meters tall and the tallest of the three, Central- is 6310 Meters, the toughest of the three, and the North stands tall at 6,450 meters,” Zirpe said.
Several mountaineers have organised expeditions to Mt Meru, however, a handful of mountaineers could manage to reach the summit and none of them were Indian, Zirpe added.
Mount Meru is situated between Mount Thalai Sagar and Mount Shivling and is regarded as having the most difficult climbing routes. By mountaineering standards, the success rate of climbing excursions on Mt. Meru is significantly low.
In May, the Giripremi team attempted Mt Meru from the same West face. However, due to extreme weather conditions, the team had to return only 200 meters from the summit. This expedition helped the team gain crucial experience and learnings that helped this time to mitigate the challenges. From 25th August, the team was stationed at the base camp (4800 meters) located at Kirti Bamak glacier.
After acclimatisation climbs, the team set for the summit bid on Sept 1 evening from Camp 1 (5500 meters). The route to the summit was almost 90 degrees with a combination of rocks, solid ice, and powdered snow. The team climbed 10 hours relentlessly showing exemplary skills of rock and ice climbing to reach the top of Mt. Meru, said Umesh Zirpe.
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