ANNAPURNA -1 EXPEDITION FLAGGED-IN
Hon’ble Raksha Mantri Shri George Fernandes flagged
in the Indian Army Annapurna-1 Expedition team at Vigyan Bhawan
today.
On 06th May 2002, at 0720 hrs
a glorious chapter was added to the history of Indian mountaineering
when four army mountaineers stood on its top considered to be
more hazardous than even Everest.
Annapurna-1 located in Central Nepal Himalaya
measuring 8091 metres is one of the fourteen eight thousand metre
high peaks in the world and has been scaled by a very few till
date possibly due to frequent avalanches and very high degree
of difficulty.
On 15 Mar 2002 General S Padmanabhan, Chief
of the Army Staff flagged off the 17 member Army team led by Lt
Col S C Sharma. The expedition Base Camp is located about 10 days
walk from the road head Beni. Beni to Base Camp is an arduous
route and requires about 1000 metres of rope to secure the route.
The route ahead of base Camp to Summit is full of rock falls,
glaciers, crevasses, steep ice walls, and waist deep soft snowfields,
which make climbing a nightmarish experience. The route beyond
summit camp is exposed to such high velocity winds that the first
team though very close to summit had to retreat back on 03 May.
A small team of four men was thereafter selected
to make another summit attempt on 05 may 2002. At 2300 hrs on
a windless and starlit night the team was able to scale the summit
on 06 May at 0720 hrs and that too without the aid of bottled
oxygen. Sub Lalit Kumar Negi, Hav CN Bodh, SC, Nk Rajendra Singh
and Rfn Jagat Singh thus became the first Indians to stand on
the summit of Annapurna-1. The efforts of this team will go down
in the annals of mountaineering history because this route will
henceforth be referred to as Indian Route.
