Women cadets from Himachal, Punjab, Haryana among 16 selected for Mt Abi Gamin expedition
Five out of 16 will be selected for Mt Everest expedition
3 min read
These 16 NCC cadets — the other 13 hailing from Ladakh, Shillong, Kerala, West Bengal and Uttarakhand — were selected from a group of 57 gathered in Delhi from various states and Union Territories last week. (Express photo)Kritika Sharma, 17, of Shree Guru Gobind Singh Ji Government College (SGGSJGC), Paonta Sahib in Sirmaur, Anjali Gupta, 19, of GHG Khalsa College, Ludhiana, and Nishu, 18, of Government Post Graduate College, Jind in Haryana, are among 16 cadets of the National Cadet Corps (NCC) selected from across the country for Mt Abi Gamin (7,344 m) expedition in Uttarkashi.
These 16 NCC cadets — the other 13 hailing from Ladakh, Shillong, Kerala, West Bengal and Uttarakhand — were selected from a group of 57 gathered in Delhi from various states and Union Territories last week.
“The Mt Abi Gamin expedition is significant because it serves as a gateway to the ambitious Mt Everest expedition scheduled for later this year. Five women cadets out of the 16 will be selected for the Everest expedition based on their performance, endurance and ability to adapt to adverse conditions. The expedition will commence on Friday with a 10-day intensive training programme at Nehru Institute of Mountaineering (NIM) in Uttarkashi. We are confident that Kritika Sharma, a national-level kabaddi player, will secure a spot among the top five cadets. Kritika hails from the interior area of Sangrah in Sirmaur district,” said Prof Pooja Bhatti, the head of the SGGSJG NCC unit.
“Kritika Sharma, Anjali Gupta and Nishu were selected based on their physical endurance and performance in Ropar last month. They were then taken to the national capital, where they were chosen along with 13 others from the group of 57 cadets. They have been taken from Delhi to Uttarakhand, and their expedition will end on September 27,” officials said.
Kritika’s brother Aditya Sharma said, “Our father Bhagat Singh is a carpenter and our mother is an Anganwadi worker. We live in a joint family in Sangrah, a remote village in Sirmaur district. Kritika has an innate talent for mountaineering. She is skilled in ascending hills and mountains. She has climbed to and descended the Churdhar peak (3,647 metres) in a day.”
“Anjali Gupta is a BA final-year student from a poor family. Her father is a tailor and her mother is a homemaker. She is the eldest of three siblings. Adventure is her passion. In July, Anjali was selected by the NCC Battalion for the Basic Mountaineering Course (BMC) at Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Mountaineering and Allied Sports (ABVIMAS) in Manali. She passed the BMC with top grades,” a relative of Anjali from Ludhiana said.
Abi Gamin, also known as Ibib Gamin, is among the 57,000-metre-high peaks of the Himalayas in Uttarakhand. Its summit lies on the border with Tibet, and its northern slope is in the Ngari Prefecture of Tibet. Abi Gamin was first ascended by a team of Anglo-Swiss mountaineers — R Dittert, A Tissières and G Chevalley — on August 22, 1950.
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