SBI Climbers adventure team scales Mt Churdhar
The Voice of Chandigarh News:
A team led by Mr Navdeep Sood, Assistant General Manager at local head office of SBI had scaled the Churdhar Peak situated at 12000 feet in just 16 hours. Peak is in Sirmaur district of Himachal Pradesh.
After five hours road journey from Chandigarh, one reaches a small village called Nohradhar, base camp for the Churdhar peak. From base camp, the rest of journey is done on foot climbing the mountains in the Shivalik hills of Himalayas.
From base camp of Nouradhar the trek of 20 kilometres begins for the Churdhar peak which is done on foot. The Trail goes through dense forest for more than 13 kilometers and after the Tree-line ends you are greeted by naked and plain mountains covered with big boulders and snow. A long trek through the hardened ice and sometimes fresh snow takes you to a path made of huge boulders. After crossing the boulders you reach the summit which is the situated at 12,000 feet above sea level. The day temperature at the peak and it’s surrounding is -5 degree Celsius during November which dip further during nights. Generally the peak is closed in November due to extreme cold conditions and unpredictable weather. There is a small halt at approximately 13 km from base camp where the trekkers can stay at night in tent but this too is closed during winters. In these circumstances only the tough mountaineers attempt to scale this peak in winters as they plan to do this in one day itself without staying anywhere in between.
SBI Climbers team comprising 7 members had different plans though. This team had experienced and trained leader Mr Navdeep Sood. His team members namely Kapil Purthi, Preeti Gupta, Arun had some experience but Rahul, Balbir and Dheeraj were the first timers. They all decided to do something’ very challenging and accordingly they planned to do the summit and come back to the base camp on same day. This was going to be tough as walking 40 kilometres and gaining height of 12000 feet and then returning back to base camp required will power and determination besides endurance and courage.
As planned they started from Base camp at 6:00 am on 25/11/2022 and walked through the dense forest to reach the summit at 3:00 pm in the afternoon. Without adequate supply of water and food they survived the day on candies and some dry fruits. Afte summit, the team decided to return back to base camp.
The descending journey was very tough due to hardened ice which made it extremely slippery followed by dense forest which was to be crossed in thick darkness.
Negotiating their way through lonely dark night and the forest they finally arrived at the base camp at Nauradhar.
This was a remarkable achievement as the team did the trek of 40 km in 16 hours without taking a break. The endeavour becomes yet more challenging when there were many members who had no experience of mountaineering. “Though very demanding, I am very happy to achieve this milestone” said Preeti who traveled all the way from Delhi to do this expedition. “I will now try something more challenging and demanding next time” said Mr Arun who recently started taking the adventure sport as an hobby. Rahul, the first timer, was to excited to be successful in first attempt and thanked SBI for giving such opportunities.
Balbir ans Dheeraj plan to motivate other SBI colleagues for taking up these kind of activities.
Mr Navdeep Sood, thanked his mentors namely Mr Vinod Jaiswal, CGM Chandigarh Circle and Mr Sumit Phaka, GM, Punjab, who are always encouraging the staff to engage in team buildings activities. Without the blessings of seniors this kind of activities are not possible.
The team of SBI Climbers are planning to do Mt Yunam and Stoke Kangri in this winter.
