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| Siachen open to trekkers | | | Early Times Reporter
Jammu|Sep 12: In a rare feast to the trekkers, Siachen, the world's highest battlefield and an inhospitable terrain, has been thrown open to public.
Trekkers can now go up the icy heights of the second largest glacier in the mighty Karakoram range in Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir , a dreaded place till four years ago because of continuous shelling from Pakistan.
A group of 20 intrepid civilians--teenage girls, NCC and military academy cadets, housewives and corporate executives--would form the first batch to tread the glacial heights, where snow never melts, from September 19, Army officials said here today.
Though the Indian and Pakistani troops are at points across the 72-km long glacier, almost at eyeball to eyeball confrontation, peace has prevailed in the snowy heights for the past four years ever since a cease-fire is in force.
The group sponsored by the Army Adventure Cell and Indian Mountaineering Foundation would trek from the base to Kumar camp located at a height of 16,000 feet, on the mid-glacier.
On their four day trudge across the glacier, the civilian trekkers would be guided by ten Army glacial experts.
Though guns have fallen silent danger does lurk in the form of giant crevasses and shifting ice formations.
"We plan to open the glacier to similar civilian trekkers on a regular basis from next year", Army officials said.
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