| Summary | |
| Owner | Orian Regnier |
| Creation Date | 2007-10-10 09:14:58 UTC-0400 |
| Description |
Expedition to Mamostong Kangri 7,516m (23,659ft) summit Northern India, Karakoram range August 2007 Hi all! Although I've left my beloved MIT Outing Club two and a half years ago now, there's a bunch of reasons why I want to tell you about this story: It's an outstanding project, a dream come true, and I wish you experience that one day! And I want to tell you : you can do it! and even once you're working... My amazing experience at MIT Outing Club and its wonderful members is part of why I tried this expedition. Special thanks to Polly and Woody If there's anyone interested in organizing an expedition, whether in South America, US, Alaska, Himalaya,... please let me know, it'd be awesome! The expedition The goal - Mamostong Kangri summit - was a little ambitious, or call it "challenging"... High : 7,516m (23,659ft) Unknown/deserted/pure nature area : last human presence in 1992, and only second foreign expedition More technical than I had anticipated : 45° slopes Time constraints : although we left for 5 weeks, we only had 19 days trekking/climbing, and only a couple of good-weather days and personally my first time in altitude out of the Alps... In the time-frame we had, there was one single "summit-day" where weather was ok above 7,000m. That day our guide Paulo, one member Michel, and two Indians Tenzing and Thinles opened the route to the summit in the late afternoon. Paulo was to take three more of us up the following day, but weather stopped us at 7,100m and stayed bad in altitude. What to learn from it Maybe the most memorable memory I have is the air in the heights: so pure, such thin air... I can't stop noticing months later here in Paris how dense the air feels, how a small breath allows to run up stairs... Well, back to earth now... once you are willing to go for such an adventure, the main constraints are finding people, finding time (a solid month to a month and a half), and money... People: I recommend you carefully chose fun, interesting, talkative people/friends: you're going to be (only) with them 24/7 for a long time, and the high altitude puts additional pressure... Time and money: when you're student you may lack the money, all right. And when working, you may say you lack the time ; yet there's one important point I want to make here: it is not necessarily a bad thing to chose to take that time off. In my case it's even been very positively looked at: my company has not only granted me 5 weeks of paid and unpaid holidays, but also largely supported me - from shared open curiosity/interest to generous sponsoring! I'd agree that some kinds of jobs make it easier (I work for a strategy consultancy called OC&C), but in any case, you're going for "a major challenge" not for a holiday on the beach, and it's all positive for your image and the image of the company. Contact and links Do not hesitate to contact me, whether you have any question, or youre willing to organize an expedition... Orian Regnier OrianRegnier @ occstrategy.fr Orian.Regnier @ gmail.com (please take out the spaces) The story by Paulo, our Guide (in French) |