2 climbers to scale Deo Tibba amid biting cold

Kolkata: Two mountaineers from Bengal will start their expedition to scale the challenging Deo Tibba (6001m) peak at Manali in Himachal Pradesh on Saturday. The two-member team, accompanied by Sherpa Phur Semba, is at Manali. They will travel by road to Jagatsukh and start their trekking.

The expedition assumes significance as the climbers — Rudra Prasad Halder and Rudra Prasad Chakraborty — took up the challenge of scaling the mountain in the winter season amid biting cold. "I have been longing for quite some time to do an expedition during winter as I feel that the hill presents a majestic beauty during this time of the year," said Rudra Prasad Halder.

Not many mountaineers from Bengal had dared to scale a peak during winter. "The toughest challenge that we have to overcome is to rope in members from the porter's agency to carry our trekking equipment up to the base camp," he added.

The duo has to arrange for logistical support and offer training to the members so that they can carry their equipment to the base camp. Temperature at the base camp will hover around minus 20 degree Celsius. If everything goes as per plan, they will be reaching the summit between February 18 and 20 when the temperature is expected to be around minus 40 degree Celsius.

Halder had suffered frostbite and injured his fingers in his bid to rescue fellow mountaineer Kuntal Karar in their expedition to Kanchenjunga in May 2019. He presently works with the wireless department of Bengal police. He has already successfully completed 21 mountain summits, including the Mt. Everest. He was trained at Uttarkashi's Nehru Institute of Mountaineering. He is associated with the Sonarpur-based trekking club, Arohi.