M-5 Unsupported Expedition 2023
A team from West Bengal, India attempted the Milang group of peaks located in the Lahaul-Spiti district of Himachal Pradesh, India. It was a self-supported (without any help of HAP/HAF) low-cost expedition to summit M5 (6370m) from the southwest side.
There are ten peaks surrounding the Milang glacier named M1 to M10. M4(6517m) is the highest among these ten peaks, known as Mulkila, which means the 'Silver Goddess'.
Avisek Tunga (32), Binoy Das (32), Chottu Roy (30), Anant Singh (21), and Pankaj Grewal (27) from Bengal reached the Base Camp (4200m) on 22nd June 2023 after crossing Khawar Nala. On 3rd July they climbed the south face of M5 and reached up to 40m below the summit ( 6370m, 32°32'57.4"N 77°24'08.2"E). They returned due to the difficulty of negotiating the snow and ice conditions near the summit. The team descended to the base camp on 4th July safely.
The approach
Mulkila Glacier
The leader of the team, Avisek Tunga who works at the Mechanical Engineering Department, Meghnad Saha Institute of Technology, Kolkata as an assistant professor says, “for us, this was an experiment on an unsupported expedition, which means without the help of HAP, Sherpas, and Guides are we capable of high altitude technical climbing? My objective was also to show that mountaineering is not an expensive sport at all, real adventure comes at minimum costs”
Tunga who has fixed up the rope and opened up the route gained confidence after completion of the expedition. “the confidence of conducting high-altitude long-exposure climbing with the freedom in the mountain, the freedom of choosing routes for ourselves is achieved,” he says.
"We all gave our 100% to ensure the summit, but due to a small mistake, we missed the summit, though the summit was never our target, it was a bonus, we came to negotiate the challenges by ourselves and we did it successfully. A more interesting fact is that we found a climbable line on M4, which needs a strong team, " he adds.
" It was past 10 pm by the time we finished opening the route and had our dinner at summit camp. We had planned to start our summit push within the next 2 hours. Hence we did not remove our shoes and fell asleep outside the tent. Within a span of an hour of falling asleep, we started developing frostbite but we quickly sprang into action and any casualty was averted. However, we had to start on our summit push the next morning, as a result of which snow conditions deteriorated towards the subsequent part of our journey " he clarifies his mistake
However, Mulkila (M4) was first climbed in 1939 by an Austro-British expedition with Fritz Kolb, Ludwig Krenek, and Robey Johnson. The first Swedish Himalayan expedition was carried out in 1973 when Mulkila (6517m) was successfully climbed. T. Oshi from Japan made 3rd ascent of M4 in 1976. A Japanese climber Y. Watanabe Climbed in 1977. An Indian team led by Gautam Datta climbed M4 and then descended down the col that connects the ridge of M5, they climbed M5 in 1988. It was the first Indian successful expedition. Shila De led a team that climbed M1 in 1989 along With three others. M9 was climbed by Mridul Dashgupta and K T Rao from the same team. In the same year, 1989, Kajal Dasgupta and Priyatosh Chakraborty climbed M2. Indian Mountaineering Foundation Ladies Expedition led by Deepu Sharma made an ascent of M4 with 8 members in 2007. Climbers from Bhadrakali Padatik, WB led by Prosenjit Mukherjee climbed M5 in 2007.
Icefall
M5 or the spike as seen from camp-3
Timeline of the Expedition
19 June - Arrived Chandigarh (3:35am), Bus (4:40am) to Manali (1:20pm), shopping and equipment hiring at Manali.
20 June - Bus for Keylong (11:50am); Bus for Yotse (4:30pm) to reach the roadhead; camping started with self-cooking at 3400m.
21 June - Yotse to Transition Camp-1 (3700m) after crossing Khawar Nala.
22 June - Transition Camp (7:30am) to Base Camp(2:30pm) (4200m).
23 June - Equipment packing and checking at Base Camp.
24 June - Base Camp to Camp-1 (4500m) negotiating 1st icefall.
25 June - Camp-1 to Camp-2(4800m).
26 June - Camp-2 to Base Camp due to bad weather.
27 June - Rest at Base Camp, Avisek, Anant, and Pankaj went to Yotse for a weather update and rations.
28 June - They came back to Base Camp.
29 June - Base Camp to Camp-2.
30 June - Camp-2 to Camp-3 (5000m), stopped due to heavy snowfall.
1 July - Camp-3 to Camp-4 (5640m) negotiating 2nd icefall.
2 July - Camp-4 to Summit Camp(5800m) negotiating 3rd icefall and fixed route over a glacier wall upto 5950m.
3 July - Summit push at 8am, after frostbite threat at midnight we had to start late, we chose the south face of M5, it was ice rock mixed climbing, negotiated up to 5970m, only 40m left. The snow melted in the afternoon, so we couldn’t arrest ourselves if we fall, so we had to give up.
4 July - Summit Camp to Base Camp.
5 July - Base Camp to Transit Camp.
6 July - Transit Camp to Yotse.
7 July - Yotse to Manali.
Climbing Members - Avisek Tunga, Binoy Das, Chottu Roy, Anant Singh, Pankaj Grewal
Base Camp members - Tarun Mahato and Arghya Mondal
Summit march
The GPS traces of final point
M6 in the backdrop
The Climbing Team
Gautam Datta on the M5 Summit, 1988
Spike of M5 and the summit ridge, from 1988 expedition by Gautam Datta
Image courtesy: Avisek Tunga and Gautam Datta
* This article was revised and edited on 15 July 2023.
