Soliloquy of a Wandering Pilgrim

After Shivling comes Diwali!!! After a dull day, it's time to laugh! After the meditation comes enlightenment! After some hard work in the thin air it's time to celebrate!   When all our efforts had failed, it was surrender! A sad absent minded retreat! We did not want to do something utterly 'heroic' (to be read "stupid") on the overhang 'water ice' wall of the final serac barrier. Climbing that water ice at an altitude over 6140m seemed simply out of the equation. The avalanches ( in an average 3 per day) from the serac barrier, the 3 days of new powder snow, the knee deep old, slushy snow on the moraines of Meru glacier; we had faced them all and fought them well. We did fix rope all the way to the Serac Wall, to our Camp 3. But we were not strong enough to tackle the final barrier. Surely its features have changed from the last year's pictures that we had seen from past expeditions on Shivling!   When any of my expeditions fail to reach

The "Iceland Garwal Expedition" to Mount Shivling (6543m)- West Ridge is now happening! The 5 memeber climbing team is now in Delhi. We as the Adventure Mania team are quite excited and proud to be an integral part of this Expedition. We will have a formal briefing at the IMF tomorrow and then we will start heading for the mountains on 4 October. It will take us 3 days of driving to reach Gangotri, and then another 2 days of trekking will bring us to the Base Camp, Tapovan.   With a bit of luck, sunshine and smooth ride through paperworks; we might be able to climb this mountain and come back down safe.   I will try to post one more update before we are off to the mountains...   -- Adventure Mania www.adventuremania.com Real Adventure Journeys Across Himalaya t:+91 97487 61139 m:+91 92305 11139