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 Youths conquered

Mt Pangarchulla and Mt Kuari Top

"I had been planning for Mt. Pangarchulla since 2020, but it got cancelled due to the pandemic.

It was back in the pipeline in 2021 and 2022 as well, but still didn’t happen.

In 2023 too, it was supposed to take place. However, we wanted a known range for the trekkers so that in case of any difficulty we could handle health issues. Also, in Uttarakhand there’s often a bleak possibility of snow even at higher altitudes. So we dropped the plan and moved on.  By then, this peak had almost become ‘haunted’ for me.

I finally said, ‘Let’s go for the haunted one.’

That’s when the discussion started with Mr. Gaurav Rawat, and it was finally confirmed for April & May 2024."__

"Although we confirmed the dates in October 2023, we were unsure about the 2024 election schedule. Voting is important for the betterment of the nation, and we didn’t want any of our trekkers to miss their right to vote. So we delayed the launch.

 We had also decided that the group would be small — around 12 members, basically a tempo-traveler size.

Normally we launch expeditions during Dasara or Diwali, but that year there was no clarity at all because of the elections. We had no idea what the dates would be. 

Still, we took a chance and bluntly booked our tickets for 30th April to 10th May 2024, hoping the elections would be over by then. We kept our fingers crossed about what would happen if the elections fell in between. But looking at previous election schedules, we decided to go ahead and take the risk."__

"I had so many nightmares after booking the tickets and paying the amount to the travel agents. I kept wondering how we would recover the money. It had been almost 2-3 months and there wasn’t even a single entry. But I was confident — we would rise to the occasion.

Finally in February, the entries started pouring in. Shruthvik Jain made the first debut entry for the program, followed by Fazal and Afsa.That gave us a little hope that we could recover at least some amount.

Then slowly, Fazal recommended his friend Mr. Mahesh Kaje, and we felt something positive was happening. Still, we had to keep extending the last date... and then one more entry came in, by Jayesh Jain."__



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