Mountaineers From Pune’s Mountaineering Club Become First Group Of Indians To Climb Mount Meru
Pune 2nd Sept 2023: The members of Giripremi, a mountaineering club from Pune in association with members from Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, Uttarkashi have created the history by becoming the first Indian group to climb Mount Meru, a 6660 meters tall mountain located in Garhwal Himalaya known as one of the most difficult mountains to climb. Giripremi’s Ganesh More, Vivek Shivade, Varun Bhagwat, Mingma Sherpa, Vinod Gusain, senior instructor, NIM, Uttarkashi and his colleagues Bihari Rana and Ajit Rawat unfurled the Indian tricolor at the summit of Mt. Meru at around 8am on September 2, 2023.
This marks the first ever successful expedition to Mt. Meru (South) from India and first-ever successful expedition to Mt. Meru from the West Face in the entire world. Dawa Sherpa, Furtensing Sherpa also climbed the mountain along with Giripremi team. Lakpa Sherpa supported the expedition by climbing till Camp 1. The expedition was led by Umesh Zirpe, a veteran mountaineer from the city. Uttarkashi’s Nehru Institute of Mountaineering has been helping and supporting Giripremi in the expedition.
In May, the Giripremi team attempted Mt. Meru from the same West face. However, due to extreme weather conditions, the team had to return only 200 meters from the summit. From 25th August, the team was stationed at the base camp (4800 meters) located at Kirti Bamak glacier. Due to extreme and unusual rainfall in Himalayas, the team was sceptical regarding the favorable weather conditions but fortunately, the weather situation improved and the team could concentrate on climbing and battling the mighty challenges in the expedition.
After acclimatization climbs, the team set for the summit bid on Sept 1 evening from Camp 1 (5500 meters). The route to the summit is almost 90 degrees with a combination of rocks, solid ice and powdered snow. Team climbed 10 hours relentlessly showing exemplary skills of rock and ice climbing to reach the top of Mt. Meru. The successful summit marks the historic feat in world’s mountaineering.
Ganesh More (Mt. Everest and Mt. Chyo Oyu Summitter), Vivek Shivade (Mt. Kanchenjunga, Mt. Ama Dablam and Mt. Manda Summitter), Varun Bhagwat (young mountaineer and summitter of Mt. Bhrigu Parvat) along with Mingma Sherpa, an ace mountaineer who have climbed eight thousander mountains multiple times and Vinod Gusain, the senior instructor at Nehru Institute of Mountaineering were part of
the climbing team.
Mt. Meru is always known as the most challenging mountain to climb, more difficult than Everest. There are several climbing routes to all three peaks of the mountain. Several mountaineers have organised the expeditions to Mt. Meru, however, a handful of mountaineers could manage to reach the summit of Mt. Meru and none of them were Indian.
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