The Hunt for Mount Everest by Craig Storti | Book Review

 Members of the 1921 Everest Reconnaissance Expedition 

This review was first published in The Hindu on  August 7th 2021

https://www.thehindu.com/books/books-reviews/the-hunt-for-mount-everest-review-the-giant-among-pygmies/article35759391.ece

For most climbers and armchair mountaineers, the history of Everest begins with an Indian surveyor named Radhanath Sikdar rushing into the office of the Surveyor General of India around the 1850s, and announcing “Sir, I have found the highest mountain in the world!” Craig Storti  in his opening chapter “Peak XV” casts his doubts on this story  and attributes the discovery of Everest to the Surveyor General Andrew Waugh jointly with John Hennessey and Sikdar.

 In 1921, around seventy odd years later, the British launched the first expedition to find the route to the mountain.  But, the extraordinary events which took place in between remain largely unknown, other than through some books on Tibet, The Great Game and early Himalayan expeditions.

In his book, Storti  brings this all together and conjures up a racy narrative with larger than life characters that tells this story starting with an audacious mission to Lhasa in 1903 by Sir Francis Younghusband which in fact unlocked the key for the British to claim Everest as their  own mountain. 

Mardi Himal Trek Nepal December 2021 | Route and Timings

 

A South Col team walked to Mardi Himal in December 2021 in perfect weather. Here is the detailed description of the route and the timings. 

December 6th 2021 Pokhara to Kande by road and walk to Pitam Deorali 

We left Kathmandu for Pokhara by the 8 30 am flight - luckily for us the weather was good this morning and we reached Pokhara by 10 am - a micro bus was waiting for us and we drove upto   Kande in a hour - the road was very good upto Kande and had been newly resurfaced. We started out from Kande at 11 15 am and climbed steeply for the first 45 minutes mainly on steps; there were very few trekkers on the route - we got to Australian camp in an hour and 15 min - the clouds had come in by noon and the famous view from there  we did not see this time.  We  took a short break and then walked down to Pothana in 25 minutes through a beautiful forested section. We stopped for lunch at Heaven’s Gate, our usual lodge, in the sunshine.  From Pothana the trail to Pitam Deorali had large sections where a new road is being built and there are signs in yellow pointing the trekker to the forest trail which criss-crosses the road - on the way soon after Pothana a new lodge was being built in the forest sadly cutting a number of trees - a lodge so close to Pothana did not make sense as Pothana has a number of good lodges.  Again just before Pitam Deorali there is a new lodge which has been built in a clearing again by cutting down part of the forest. The weather was breaking when we reached Deorali and in the evening there was a heavy thunderstorm with lightning and thunder and rain for around two hours which would have deposited a lot of snow in the higher altitudes around Mardi High camp - in the evening after the rain we could see all the lights of Pokhara valley and on the other side across the valley the lights of Ghandrung as well - the stars were just coming out in the sky and clouds studded across the rapidly clearing sky.

 Kande to Australian Camp  2050m  28 18 13N 83 49 40E  1 hr 15 min to 30 min Australian Camp to Pothana 25 min 1950m 28 18 47 N 83 49 49E
Pothana to Pitam Deorali 1 hour 2140m 28 19 48N 83 49 47E 2100 metres