Mt Meru, a big challenge for mountaineers: Zirpe

The Pune-based 'Giripremi', the premier mountaineering club in the country, on Saturday flagged off its ambitious expedition to Mt Meru, a 6,660 meters tall mountain located in Garhwal-Himalayas. Dr Pramod Chaudhari, Founder- Chairman of Praj Industries handed over the Indian tricolour to Umesh Zirpe, the expedition leader and his team. Scaling Mt Meru is considered more challenging and tougher than Mt Everest. DH spoke to Zirpe, an Everester and mentor to several mountaineers, to know more about the expedition scheduled for May-June 2023.

What makes this expedition different from other expeditions to Mt Meru?

The team of experienced climbers will attempt the summit from the South-West ridge, a route that has never been attempted by an Indian team before. Giripremi team will become the first Indian team to climb Mt Meru if they make it to the summit. Till now, Giripremi climbers have reached the summit of eight of the top fourteen mountains in the world including Mt Everest, Mt Kanchenjunga, and Mt Annapurna. In addition, the team of climbers from the club unfurled the Indian tricolour on Mt Manda, a challenging mountain in the Indian Himalayas in 2021.

Tell us the significance of Mt Meru.

Meru word is derived from Sanskrit. It literally means the peak or the pinnacle. In mythology, the highest point or peak is called Meru. Mt Meru is located in Garhwal Himalayas in Uttarakhand. A 6,660-meter-tall peak is located between Mt Thalai Sagar and Mt Shivling. Meru is known for the most challenging climbing routes. The success rate of the climbing expeditions is significantly low at Mt Meru by mountaineering standards. There are three peaks of Mt Meru- south is 6,660 meters and the tallest of the three, central- is 6,310 meters, the toughest of the three, and the north stands tall at 6,450 meters.

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What is the team like?

Mt Meru summit will be attempted by a team consisting of experienced as well as young climbers. Wing Commander Devidutta Panda, the former Vice Principal of Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, Darjeeling, and the head of Adventure Wing, Airforce, Ashish Mane, summitter of five 8,000er meters mountain, Dr Sumeet Mandale, summitter of Mt Cho Oyu, Mt Kanchenjunga, Mt Annapurna and Mt Manda, Krishna Dhokale, summitter of Mt Everest and Mt Kanchenjunga, Vivek Shivade, summitter of Mt Kanchenjunga, Mt Ama Dablam and Mt Manda, Pawan Hadole, summitter of Mt Manda, Varun Bhagwat, an ace rock climber, and mountaineer will be part of the climbing team. Akhil Katkar joins the team as Base Camp Manager.

There are several legends and records associated with Mt Meru.

Mt Meru is also associated with a unique world record. In 2006, Australian adventurists Dr Glenn Singleman and Heather Swan climbed the 6,604 meters altitude of Mt Meru and did the Base Jump to the base camp making the highest base jump of the world from the Earth’s surface. It was bettered by Valery Rozov in 2013 when he successfully attempted the base jump to the Everest base camp from the North Face. Singleman and Swan’s location to base jump was nearer to the Mt Meru summit possessed several challenges during the climb. However, Dr Singleman and Swan were prepared enough to challenge all the tackles they met. The couple spent six years researching Mt Meru and the nearby region. Mingma Sherpa from Darjeeling was part of the Singleman’s expedition.

What is considered most difficult as far as the Mt Meru expedition is concerned?

The climbing route from north-east ridge to the central peak is the deadliest as the icy rock walls are beyond 90 degrees with a granite composition that makes the gripping difficult. The shape of the rock patch is similar to the shape of a shark fin, hence it is called as Shark Fin route. This route is filled with avalanches. American, British, Russian, and Japanese mountaineers have been trying to climb the Shark Fin route since 1986 but no success came till 2001. Russian mountaineer Valery Babanov managed to climb the lower half of Shark Fin but he had to give up his climb midway and had to try a different route to reach the summit. He managed to reach the Central summit making the first ever successful summit to Mt Meru. Interestingly, it was a solo climb to the peak. The route Valery used is named Shangrila. The first success to Central Peak from the Shark Fin route came ten years after the first successful climb to Mt Meru. In 2011, Conrad Anchor, Jimmy Chin, and Renault Orztuk climbed via Shark Fin, it was their second attempt, the first attempt they made in 2008 when the summit was just 150 meters, but due to the sudden change in weather, the team had to spend 4 days without any support. They were out of food and the weather was becoming harsher with time, so they decided to descend by aborting their summit bid. They made it three years later.