Black Peak expedition 2017

Dream Wanderlust | Sept 18 , 2017

A team from Bengal reached the top of Mt. Black Peak (6387m) in Garhwal Himalayas on 6th September, 2017 at around 10:30 am. The team consisted of twenty members. Basanta Singha Roy was the leader of the team. He said "Main Objective of this expedition is to inspire the next generation. Every member ferried their own load during the course of this expedition."

Timeline of the expedition:
25th August: Team left Kolkata.

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26th August: Reached Dehradun. Stayed at Agarwal Dharamsala.

27th August: Team left at 6 am for Taluka (2032m) and reached at 6 pm. The road from Sakri to Taluka was damaged and the way was flooded with water. So they used a wooden log bridge to ferry the load to the other side of the road. Hence it took them nearly 12 hours to reach Taluka. Overnight stayed at GMVM.

28th August: Started for Osla (2624m). Distance between Taluka and Osla is 13km. Overnight stayed at GMVM.

29th August: Early morning started for Debsu Bugiyal (3050m). Distance covered 6km. Overnight stayed in tents.

30th August: Mule owners refused to carry loads to Ruinsara Tal (3602 m). After a bit of quarrel with the mule owners finally the team decided to carry the loads of around 870kg up to Base Camp themselves. Started load ferry around 8:30 am and reached Ruinsara Tal around 12:30 pm and returned back to Debsu Bugiyal. Distance between Debsu Bugiyal to Ruinsara Tal is 10 km.

31st August: Reached Ruinsara Tal.

1st September: Performed load ferry to Base Camp (4217m) and returned back to Ruinsara Tal. Distance between Base Camp to Ruinsara Tal is 7 km.

2nd September: Five climbers (Basanta Singha Roy, Rohit Majumder, Kausik Biswas, Biswanath Saha, Rumpa Das) three sherpa (Pemba Sherpa (Head Sherpa), Vire Tamang, Lakhpa Sherpa) and a cook (Ballu Singh) reached Base Camp at around 4 pm. Remaining members stayed at Ruinsara Tal.

3rd September: Load ferried to Camp-1 (4542m). Distance between Camp-1 to Base Camp is 4.5km. Nine new members (Rumki Manna, Sudipa Das, Sumitra Debnath, Subrata Ghosh, Amlan Mukherjee, Amiya Chitra, Sudipta Biswas,Prasanta Singha and Ajay Bhattacharjee)and a sherpa (Pasang Sherpa) occupied Base Camp from Ruinsara Tal. Six members (Souvik Sarkar, Swapan Mallick, Bhuddhadeb Halder Asim Mandal, Tanuj Das and Siddharta Shankar Sarkar) and a cook (Jung Bahadur) stayed at Ruinsara Tal.

4th September: Ten members, three sherpas and a cook reached Camp-2 (4949m). The trail was passed through glacier and then through boulder. Four members (Amiya Chitra, Ajay Bhattacharjee, Rumki Manna, Sudipa Das) stayed at the Base Camp with Pasang Sherpa. Distance between Camp-1 to Camp-2 is 1.8 km.

5th September: All members of Camp-2 reached the Summit Camp i.e. Camp-3 (5399m). Distance between Camp-2 to Camp-3 is 2.8 km.

6th September: The team left for summit push at around 2:30 am. Eight climbers, three sherpa and a cook reached the summit at 10:30 am. Sudipta Biswas and Sumitra Debnath could not make it to the summit. However, they reached upto 6100m. The route proved to be a challenge as the crevasses had opened. They fixed 400 ft of rope on their way to the summit. Distance between Camp-3 to summit is 4.2 km. They returned back to the Summit Camp at 3 pm.

7th September: Team reached Ruinsara Tal. They took 10 hrs to go down to Ruinsara Tal.

8th September: They took rest and started packing for their return journey to Base Camp. Tanuj Das and Siddharta Shankar Sarkar along with Jung Bahadur went down to Taluka to get porters. Jung Bahadur along with eighteen porters came on 8th September at Ruinsara Tal around 4 pm. He had a contract of 3 days of wages with the porters.

9th September: They left for Taluka around 7:30 am but the porters started exerting pressure on the team to extort 4 days of wages else they would not ferry the load to Taluka. This extortionist nature of the porters continued till Taluka. Distance from Taluka to Ruinsara Tal is 30 km.

10th September: Started around 7 am in the morning for Dehradun to board train for Howrah at around 8 pm.

Expedition Summary:
Route: Taluka (2032m) - Osla (2624m) - Debsu Bugiyal (3050m) - Ruinsara Tal (3602m) - Base Camp (4217m) - Camp-1 (4542m) - Camp-2 (4949m) - Camp-3 (5399m) - Summit of Black Peak (6387m)
Team Members : 20 Climbers, 4 Sherpa and 2 Cook
Basanta Singha Roy, Biswanath Saha, Rohit Majumder, Kausik Biswas, Rumpa Das, Prasanta Singha, Amlan Mukherjee, Subrata Ghosh, Sudipta Biswas, Sumitra Debnath, Amiya Chitra, Ajay Bhattacharjee, Rumki Manna, Sudipa Das, Souvik Sarkar, Swapan Mallick, Bhuddhadeb Halder, Asim Mandal, Tanuj Das, Siddharta Shankar Sarkar, Pemba Sherpa (Sherpa), Lakhpa Sherpa (Sherpa), Vire Tamang (Sherpa), Pasang Sherpa (Sherpa), Ballu Singh (Cook) and Jung Bahadur (Cook)
Summit members : 8 Climbers, 3 Sherpa and 1 Cook
Basanta Singha Roy, Biswanath Saha, Rohit Majumder, Kausik Biswas, Rumpa Das, Prasanta Singha, Amlan Mukherjee, Subrata Ghosh, Pemba Sherpa (Sherpa), Lakhpa Sherpa (Sherpa), Vire Tamang (Sherpa) and Ballu Singh (Cook)
Summit time: 10:30 am (6th September, 2017)
Organised by: Mountaineers' Association of Krishnanagar

The timeline was given by Rohit Majumder and Basanta Singha Roy.

Ruinsara Tal