The Sudarshan Diary

Name of the expedition

Indo-Australian expedition to mount Sudarshan Parbat (6507m)

Peaks climbed with altitude

Sudarshan Parbat (6507m)

Route followed

West Ridge

Dates for which the permission was granted by IMF

May 20,2011 - Jun 11, 2011

Commencement of the trek from roadhead

May 24 from Gangotri

No of camps enroute base camp

1. May 24 - Chirbasa (3580m)
2. May 25 - Bhojbasa (3800m)

Establishment of base camp

May 26 base camp – 4520m At the junction of Thelu watershed with Raktvarn glacier

Establishment of higher camps

May 29 abc – 4820m At the junction of swetvarn glacier system with raktvarn glacier May 30 camp 1 – 5350m Jun 03 camp 2 – 5725m Jun 04 camp 3 – 5945m

Brief description of the route up to higher camps

Bc-abc  / all moraine Abc - Camp 1  / steep slope mostly on moraine and partly on snow Camp 1 - Camp 2 / long walk on the snow field with deep snow & steep climb on the swetvarn glacier, most crevasses were closed Camp 2 - Camp 3 / steep climb on the snow slope

Snow rock and ice conditions

• Mostly moraine till 500m short of camp 1
• Camp 1 was pitched on a snow field
• Deep snow from camp 1 – camp 3 as we had fresh snowfall before we moved from camp 1
• Steep snow slope from camp 1 to west ridge
• On the west ridge we had 200 m of rock band which had snow on it. At couple of points we encountered some loose rock
• Sharp snow ridge above rock bank
• Steep slope leading to the summit was mostly snow. Had some ice under the snow in the middle of the slope
• Last 50m to the summit was an ice wall

Weather conditions

Afternoon rainfall / snowfall almost throughout the trip (refer day to day report) Bad weather with heavy snowfall & blizzards from jun 1-2 for 20hrs

Detailed day to day itinerary

20^th May: Briefing at IMF and departure from Delhi to Haridwar on the overnight train. We had a briefing at IMF at  4:00 PM with Director IMF, Col (Retd) J.P.Bhagatjee  & Hony Secretary IMF, Col (Retd) Amit Roy where we apprised about the various rules and regulations. They also shared their invaluable experiences with us and warned us about the safety and well being of the whole group. We were introduced to Mr Sunil Prasad, our Liason Officer (LO) for the trip. Packed with luggage we boarded the overnight NDLS DDN AC Express departing New Delhi at 11:55pm. 21^st May:  Drive Haridwar to Uttarkashi  / Picked up Equipment on Rent from NIM. Sleeping Altitude: 1500m The train arrived at Haridwar at 05:00 am instead of the scheduled arrival time of 04:00am.The sky was overcast, we continued driving straight to Uttarkashi. It started raining quite heavily – not a good sign for an expedition team I thought! We had breakfast at Nagni and then continued driving to Uttarkashi, a short tea break in between and we were in Uttarkashi by 12:30 pm. We had lunch at 1:30pm and left for NIM to get our equipment. We met the principal of NIM Col I.S.Thapa and drove back to Uttarkashi and went straight to Kuflon Basics  – our home for the night. People did their last minute packing / repacking as we could leave a few things behind here. We had an early dinner and all of us went off to bed after a long day on the road. 22^nd May:  Drive Uttarkashi  to Gangotri Sleeping Altitude : 3050m We left Uttarkashi at 11am after brunch and arrived at Gangotri at 3:30pm after stopping for a short tea break in between. We stayed at Mandakini Guest House in Gangotri. 23^rd May: Acclimatisation Day in Gangotri Sleeping Altitude: 3050m We hiked up in the Rudrugaira Nalla towards Gangotri group of peaks. Gained an altitude of 3525m. We left at 8:00am and reached the high point at 10:45am. After spending some time there we turned back at 11:10am and reached the Mandakini Guest House at 2:30pm. We went for the evening aarti and all of us did our small prayers. Another round of packing / unpacking as people were leaving some more stuff in Gangotri. Everyone was expected to carry their own clothing and sleeping bags with them. There was a common duffel bag with everyone’s climbing equipment which was being carried by the porters. 24^th May: Trek Gangotri to Chirbasa Sleeping Altitude: 3580m Left at 8:30am and reached Chirbasa at 1:00 pm, had lunch, rested a bit at the lunch point. Once all the porters arrived we walked down to the campsite.  We did not get the best of the campsites as the other groups which had come ahead of us had camped there already. 25^th May: Trek Chirbasa to Bhojbasa Sleeping Altitude: 3800m Left at 6:00am to make a phone call, had to go down atleast 25mins got back to camp only at 7:15am. Breakfast was at 7:00am and we left at 7:45am, reached Bhojbasa at 9:45am, pitched tents a couple of porters came late and we had lunch at 12:30pm. We planned to go for a walk towards Gaumukh, it started raining at 4:00pm but we still left. Walked till 5:00pm till the old temple (3883m) and turned back 26^th May : Trek Bhojbasa –Base Camp Sleeping Altitude: 4520m It rained till about 9-10pm the previous night and we woke up to a clear and cold morning. Sunrise at Camp 7:30 am and we left at 8:00am. It took us 1.5 hrs to Gaumukh and it took us about 1hr 15mins on the glacier before we reached the left bank of Raktvarn Nalla. The glacier walk was not bad compared to some previous years. The climb up the left bank of of Raktvarn Nalla is steep and is on loose rocks. We stopped for lunch around 12:30pm, left at 1:00pm, crossed the river on a snow bridge and climbed steepily towards base camp. There was no trail and lots of juniper on the slopes. We reached camp at 2:30pm. 27^th May : Rest Day at Base Camp Sleeping Altitude: 4520m The idea was to rest and acclimatise. The 3 HAPS who had already reached a day earlier had dumped all the technical gear at ABC and they moved with a tent, some ration, fuel and their personal belongings to ABC. The weather was good and we played lots of bluff. In the evening Sunil the L.O. and myself went for a walk and did a height gain of 275m. 28^th May: Members do a load ferry to ABC Sleeping Altitude: 4520m We left BC at 7:45am and reached ABC at 10:45am. The three HAPs (Laxman / Ang Sherpa & Mingma Sherpa) had left for Camp1. We spoke to them on the walkie-talkies and turned back at 12:15pm, we reached camp by 2:45pm, had tea, pakora a couple of rounds of Bluff and rest. 29^th May: Base Camp to Advance Base Camp Sleeping Altitude: 4820m Beautiful day, all clear and we moved to ABC. We left at 9:00am and reached ABC at 12:30pm. It snowed quite a bit in the afternoon. The night was overcast and warm. 30^th May: Rest day at ABC Sleeping Altitude: 4820m We woke up with some snowfall. Our plan was to go up to gain some altitude and come back to ABC for lunch. All the sherpas & bobby had to shift to C1. I was meant to drop a load to c1 and turn back. Weather go quite bad and there was some snowfall and some very strong winds. All the members walked for 1.5hrs and gained an altitude of 275m and turned back. I continued with the Sherpas to C1. We pitched camp one hour ahead of the conventional Camp 1 on the edge of the snowfield. We reached there at 12:30pm (3.5hrs total). I helped pitch a tent, had some tea and turned back. It took me exactly 1 hr to get down to ABC. 31^st May: ABC to Camp 1 Sleeping Altitude: 5350m Left ABC at 9:00am, reached Camp 1 at 2:15pm. We had packed lunch on the way. It was a cold night later and started snowing at 4:00am on June 1^st. Our sherpas who were at camp 1 had dropped all the technical gear about 30 mins short of Camp 2. Our sherpas complained of not having enough ration – we radioed to Siri to bring us more supplies the following day 1^st jun: Rest day at Camp 1 Sleeping Altitude: 5350m It snowed the whole day, lots of winds and playing cards. 2^nd jun: Contingency day at Camp 1 Sleeping Altitude: 5350m It kept snowing and it was quite depressing. As per our plan we were supposed to move to Camp 2, we decided that we would wait till 12noon for the weather to clear out. It did start getting brighter and it finally stopped snowing by 12:30pm. We had a quick team meeting and it was unanimously decided that the 3 sherpas would leave for camp 2. That way they would have two full days to fix ropes on the mountain. They left at 12:30 & reached the big snowfield above the Swetvarn glacier and camped there. Sunset at Camp 1 5:30pm / Dusk by 7:30pm. It cleared out completely in the evening and the temperatures started plummeting. At 7pm the temperature inside the tent was -6deg C and by 8pm it was -10deg C. In the night we all guessed that it must have gone down till -20deg C. Our kerosene stove also started acting up and we could not have any hot drinks post dinner. It was really cold throughout the night and no one could sleep very well. In the morning we all kept waiting for the sun to come out and thaw our tents a bit. 3^rd Jun: Camp 1 to Camp 2 Sleeping Altitude: 5725m Absolutely clear day as we had expected. Sun came down at 7:15am. We started packing up, the plan was to leave at 8:00am but we could leave only by 10:00am as the tents had to be emptied / unpitched / dried and packed. We left one MH tent packed at Camp 1 with the kerosene stove / kerosene and some ration. We carried the two North Face tents with us. Since the snow was firm enough we did not rope up. It was very hard walking as the sun was really hot with no wind at all. Walking in deep snow did not make walking any easier. We kept taking 10-15mins break after every 30 mins of walk. We decided to pitch an intermediate camp on the same spot where the sherpas had camped the previous night. It was a steep uphill climb from that field to the Summit camp and would take about 2.5-3 hrs. I thought sleeping at the lower altitude would be easy on acclimatisation and then the following day which were planning to use as a rest day we could shift to summit Camp and go for the summit bid the same night.  We reached the Camp 2 at 2:25pm 4^th Jun: Camp 2 – Camp 3 Sleeping Altitude: 5945m Absolutely clear and hot day. There was no breeze at all and we had to climb a steep slope of 50-60deg gradient to get to the summit camp. We left at 09:30am and got to Summit Camp by 12:25pm. We all made some flat ground for the tents. Everyone was exhausted. The ropes started right from Camp 3 all the way up to the Summit. We had planned to do a session on jumaring and other techniques but postponed it as it was really hot. Around 4:00pm after the sun had gone down I gave everyone a quick demo on how to use the jumar. Our sherpas had fixed about 550m of rope. We had a quick team meeting and it was decided that the departure time would be 12:30am. 5^th Jun: Summit Day; Camp 3 – Summit – Camp 3 Sleeping Altitude: 5945m People took a lot more time to get ready and we could leave only by 1:30am. The sky was absolutely clear and it was really. People were not feeling too good. Things started getting better for our group as they started moving on and by the time we got up on the ridge (45min) people were in some sort of a rhythm or the other. I think it was another 45mins before we got up on to the rock band. It must have taken us an hour to negotiate the rock band which was followed by a razor sharp ridge (shades of Stopanth’s knife ridge but much shorter). Around 4:50am we could see the sun rising on the peaks behind us. Having crossed the ridge we got on to the steep slope leading to the summit. It took us roughly 2 hrs (5:30am-7:30am) to get up to the snowfield just below the summit. We took about 30 mins break, at a little bit. From here it was an ice wall leading to heavily corniced summit. We started moving one by one at 8:00am and the entire group was up on the summit by 8:30am. Lots of celebration, hugging each other, photos, videos etc. We turned back at 9:00am. We had lunch and had planned to move down to to Camp 1 at 3:30pm but everyone including the sherpas were very tired and went off to sleep. We had no rations left at C3, had some hot drinks and all of us slept again. It was a long sleepless night for me. 6^th Jun:  Camp 3 - ABC Sleeping Altitud: 4820m We all packed up and started moving down at 8:35am. The sherpas had made a load of all the equipment & rope and were planning to drag it to Camp 1. Siri had prepared some porridge and some hot water for the members who reached there by 10:45am. We carried on further down to ABC where we arrived by 1:00pm. Siri had prepared a nice lunch. Everyone went off to sleep soon after. 7^th Jun: ABC – Base Camp Sleeping Altitude: 4520m We left ABC at 9:40am. Everyone was carrying a lot. All the members were asked to carry their climbing gear with them. We reached BC around 12:40pm. Roti & Dal for lunch & we all hogged. We had retrieved all the equipment except a snow stake, infact had a few rock pitons etc and about 400m of extra rope. 8^th Jun: Winding up at Base Camp Sleeping Altitude: 4520m We had to leave behind one Snow Stake and about 200m of rope.  Weather turned bad again and it started snowing in the evening, and snowed the whole night. 11 porters arrived as per the plan but they did not bring their own ration with as they were asked to. They were fed by the team which caused the already depleting ration supplies to finish. We figured out that we would not have enough ration to for all the members for another and so we decided to go all the way down to Gangotri instead of Chirbasa as planned. 9^th Jun: Base Camp to Gangotri Sleeping Altitude: 3050m We woke up with the entire camp site covered in snow which was still falling. All of us felt good that we were not high up on the mountain. We had our breakfast and started heading down. It was hard to navigate the route down to the Raktavarn Nalla and the snow bridge on it to cross it. By the time we reached gangotri Glacier the weather started clearing out and we could see blue sky far out in the west. All members started taking off their extra layers and now all of us could feel the extra oxygen in the air. It was a long day’s walk to Gangotri and it started to get quite hot late in the afternoon. 10^th Jun: Gangotri to Uttarkashi Sleeping Altitude: 3050m 11^th Jun: Uttarkashi to Delhi          

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