Jamshedpur: A team Tata Steel Adventure Foundation (TSAF) led by its mentor, Bachendri Pal, the first women to climb Mt. Everest have become the first team of 24 members in the country to scale Mt. Kanamo 19,600 ft. situated in Spiti district of Himachal Pradesh.
The earlier team expedition was during 2008-09 when 18 members scaled 20,300 ft Stok Kangri in Lahaul district of Himachal Pradesh said Everester Rajendar Pal of TSAF. The team axed reached the summit on August 19.
The expedition comprised of 11 employees of Tata Steel and 10 rural youth of Kalinganagar in Orissa along with Chief of TSAF Bachendri Pal, Rajendar Pal and Manager Hemant Gupta. The group also had 6 women for the expedition.
�Youths in their 20 along with 60 years old were part of the group that included 24 members were our main focus was leadership development, despite hurdles and weather issues all the members of the team helped one another to reach the summit�, said Rajendar Pal of TSAF.
Narrating the adventure, Manager Hemant said, we reached our first base camp with our team at Kaza, the last road head of the Expedition on Aug 14. The second base camp for the expedition was at Kibber (13800 ft), the highest village in the world where we had to go trekking.
Later we had to move to our third and final base camp at 16000 ft between Kibber Village and Mt. Kanamo. In the morning of August 19 at 4.10 am we started our journey to the peak and reached the summit at 12 Noon. After spending an hour we came back to the base camp.
We face lots of tough conditions inside the company while working and the expedition to Mt. Kanamo was one of that, though it was a different situation I salute Bachendri Pal who showed keen interest in me and selected me for the trip, said 24 year-old Pushpanjali Mohanta of Research & Development, Tata Steel.
The most active member of the squad, 50 years-old Payo Murmu of Raw Material Handling department of Tata Steel who earlier had experiences of trekking in Bhutan, Uttarkashi, Nepal and did her basic mountaineering course from Darjeeling in 2013 dreams of climbing Mt. Everest in 2015. Payo said �The temperature hovered around -5 degrees and the path was slippery with pebbles and boulders all through couldn�t dampen our spirit and we as a team reached the summit in 8 hours�.
Recounting his first experience, Ravi Kumar Singh of CRM department of Tata Steel said �It was great debut for me and all the credit goes to Bachendri Pal who selected me for the expedition though it was tough with oxygen shortage and pebbles all through but it was a life time experience�.
TSAF secretary P.P. Kapadia, said the main aim of the expedition was to develop leadership skills, setting goals, planning, efficiency and teamwork and who better than Bachendri Pal as all the members of the team are beginners and had to cook food, had to ferry loads and establish the camp.
