After Mt Everest, police officer set to scale Kanchenjunga

Kolkata: West Bengal police assistant sub inspector Rudra Prasad Halder, who had successfully scaled the Mount Everest in 2016, will soon embark on Kanchenjunga expedition.

Halder, who presently works with the wireless department of Bengal police, is a mountaineer with repute and has already successfully made 21 mountain summits, the most notable one was the Mount Everest when he reached its summit on May 21, 2016.

Sharing his expedition plan with the Millennium Post,

Halder said: " I will leave for Kathmandu from Kolkata airport on Thursday and will staying there Saturday. The main expedition will start from Taplejung on April 8 and after walking for 11 days we will be reaching the base camp of Kanchenjunga. Then it will take another 40 to 45 days tentatively to climb up to the summit which has a height of 8586 metres."

Mountaineer Biplab Baidya and two other climbers will accompany Halder in the expedition. Kanchenjunga happens to be the third highest mountain peak in the world.

" I am grateful to the Bengal police for funding my expedition. My seniors have always encouraged and supported me. It was Director General (DG) Virendra (Sir) who flagged off my expedition on Tuesday," Halder said.

He recollected the fateful day of May 20, 2014 when mountaineer Chhanda Gayen went missing along with two sherpas in an avalanche while descending the western side of Mount Kanchenjunga in Nepal.

Later, it was declared all three of them died in the avalanche.

Halder had attempted to scale the Mount Everest in 2015 but had to stall his expedition due to the devastating earthquake in Nepal.

Halder was trained at Uttarkashi's Nehru Institute of Mountaineering. He is associated with a Sonarpur-based trekking club Arohi.

It may be mentioned that there are four climbing routes

to reach the summit of Kanchenjunga, three of which are in Nepal— from the southwest, northwest and northeast— and one from northeastern Sikkim in India.

Till date, the northeastern route from Sikkim has been successfully used only three times.

The Indian government has banned expeditions to Kanchenjunga, and therefore this route has been closed

since 2000.