| Leh girls bring laurels to state, scale Menthosa peak | | |  Early Times Report
JAMMU, July 26: Stanzin Youthog and Rinchen Dolma of J&K added another feather in their caps thus brought laurels to the state when they successfully scaled the 6443 meters high Mount Menthosa in Lahaul Spiti area of neighbouring Himachal Pradesh.
Stanzin and Rinchen were part of the 11-member All India Women Mountaineering Expedition, organized by Indian Mountaineering Foundation (IMF), New Delhi, the apex body for adventure sports in the country.
Led by Tine Mina of Arunachal Pradesh, the first women from North East to scale Mount Everest, the team comprised climbers from seven states including Shanti Rai of Sikkim (deputy leader), Indu Bala of Haryana, Gun Bala of Karnataka, Muri Linggi of Arunachal Pradesh, G.R Radhika of Telangana, Anushree of Delhi, Puja Jangam of Maharashtra, Amla Rawat of Uttrakhand besides two J&K girls.
Earlier, the team was flagged off from Delhi on June 30. After staying at Manali for two days for making the necessary purchases the team reached the base camp after spending another night enroute at Urgos, a small Budhist village at an altitude of about 10300ft.
On her return, Stanzin was felicitated by the Mountaineering Association of J&K in a function held at its office, here. During interaction with young and senior members, she unfolded the stories.
"The base camp was established at 4260 meters, a beautiful small grassy plain, next to a glacial stream. The loads were ferried to camp-one (4780m) the very next day and the camp was occupied by Shanti Rai and Stanzin on July eight. Even camp-two was established the next day at 5700m after successfully negotiating a number of hidden crevasses and ice walls and steep climb in snow and ice which was quite dangerous," informed Stanzin.
However, 10 climbers, except Anushree, who stayed at the base camp as she was not well, occupied camp-two at 4 pm on 10th July.
Encouraged by the fast and successful pace of the expedition the members were in high spirits. They left for the summit along with five Sherpas in three groups at 1.30 am. The progress was fine but just 600m below the summit they were stopped by a huge crevasse which they found difficult to negotiate.
However, Shanti Rai, the Dy. Leader led the way to cross the dangerous crevasse which encouraged other climbers and six of them including Stanzin, Rinchen, Muri, Indu Bala, Gun Bala and Radhika also successfully faced the last challenge, explained Stanzin.
Shanti was the first to reach the top of Mount Menthosa at 11.20 am followed by Stanzin and others.
"It was a moment of pride and joy and satisfaction of the mission well accomplished. The jubilant climbers offered prayers and hoisted the national flag and then returned to the base camp. In fact, the team set a record in Indian mountaineering history by summiting the peak in only six days from base camp to base camp," said the Ladakhi woman.
It may be mentioned here that Stanzin Youthog and Rinchen Dolma are ace mountaineers of J&K. While Stanzin, a constable in J&K Armed Police, has to her credit the successful ascent of difficult Shivling peak and some other formidable peaks, Rinchen, a Physical Education teacher at Leh, has scaled Gorichen (688m) in Arunachal Pradesh, Kullu Pamori (6553m) in Himachal Pradesh and Chamser Kangri( 6634m) in Ladakh. |
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