Slide 5:A tremendous precipice was open on the outer side. For the greater part of the way we found it necessary to avail ourselves of the assistance of the bearers, to conduct us by hand.’ Capt Felix Rapper, 1808. Survey of India.


ITBP ADVICE :ITBP ADVICE Assess the situation. Your first instinct may be to run but the avalanche is travelling downhill too and it may be moving at as much as 100 mph (160 Km/h). It is usually safer to head to the side, you may be able to get out of the path of the avalanche or to reach higher ground. If you cannot escape and the avalanche overtakes you clamp your mouth tightly shut and hold your breath. This will prevent snow entering your throat and lungs and so minimize the risk of suffocation. Hang on to the downhill side of any fixed object – rock pinnacle, for example. If you are engulfed for a time the avalanche may eventually flow past to rest further down leaving you free.


FURTHER ADVICE :FURTHER ADVICE While swimming you may need to use your arms to fend off rocks and snow slabs but above all keep fighting for the surface.


Ganesha & Annapurna :Ganesha & Annapurna


DANGER :DANGER The thousands of glaciers spread over the 2,400 km of the Himalayas are retreating at an alarming rate. Mr. D.P Dhobhal, a glaciologist with the Institute of Himalayan Geology, who has spent years tracking some glaciers has calculated they’re retreating at the rate of 29.5 feet a year. The Indian Space Research Organisation, using satellites to monitor changes to 466 glaciers, has discovered a more than 20 per cent reduction in their size between 1962 to 2001. At the same time, the temperature in the Himalayas has risen by 2.2 degrees.


TO LIPULEKH 5334M :TO LIPULEKH 5334M


WARNING :WARNING ‘It is a fact that people in good health are suddenly taken ill and die within a quarter of an hour.’ Father Antonio de Andrade, leading a mission to find the mythical Christian kingdom of Prester John 1624.


SYMPTOMS :SYMPTOMS nausea, headaches, vomiting, breathlessness, disturbed sleep, etcetera. High Altitude Pulmonary Oedema (HAPO) coughing, struggling for breath and ‘with blood-stained, frothy, watery expectoration with heaviness in the chest. The rates may be heard without stethoscope’ High Altitude Cerebral Oedema (HACO). In severe cases ‘patients have mental confusion, ataxia, headaches and hallucinations’ Oedema of the face and peripheral oedema could be noticed, apparently and ‘thrombophlebitis due to increased viscosity of blood may occur’. Retinal Haemorrhages means ‘only transient dimmed vision and even total blindness, also reported with or without retinal haemorrhages’


Lipulekh Pass :Lipulekh Pass


Tibet :Tibet


Dolma Las Pass 5550m :Dolma Las Pass 5550m


THE JOURNEY :THE JOURNEY “Who really knows? Who will here proclaim it? Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation? Perhaps it formed itself or perhaps it did not. The one who surveys it all, in the highest heaven, only he knows – or perhaps even he does not know.” The Rigveda.