The Hindu Business Line : A joint Indo-Pak expedition to K2?

This is the first time a formal proposal has been made for a joint Indo-Pak expedition to K2, widely considered the planet's toughest high-altitude climb.

Mumbai , Sept. 15

COLONEL J.S. Dhillon is trying to realise a dream; one that is shared by every elite mountaineer.

Except that in the sub-continent's complex geo-politics, the proposed climb in the Karakoram acquires an altogether different hue, calling as it does to merge teams from India and Pakistan for a common goal — to summit the 8,611-metre-high K2.

According to mountaineering circles, this is the first time a formal proposal has been made for a joint Indo-Pak expedition to the world's second highest mountain, widely considered the planet's toughest high-altitude climb.

Compared to Mt Everest (8,850 metres), the highest mountain, which has been successfully climbed by almost 2,000 people, only one-tenth of that has conquered K2's unforgiving slopes. Its near-perfect pyramidal shape, betraying beauty and challenge, has fascinated the best of climbers.

Veteran mountaineer and high-altitude photographer, Kurt Diemberger, outlined it well, when he recalled his childhood hobby of collecting crystals and compared K2 to a perfect crystal. Romance for the peak notwithstanding, in 1986, he lost his close companion to that very beauty — Julie Tullis, among only five women to summit K2, died in the process.

The toughest climb was also staging ground for the best-remembered piece of belaying or the technique of arresting a climber's fall. In August 1953, on an American expedition led by Dr Charles Huston, the late Pete Schoening had driven in his ice axe to single-handedly arrest his fall and that of six fellow climbers on K2's steep slopes.

The episode came to be known as `the belay,' encapsulating the gravity of the situation and the grim environment in which an established climbing technique was showcased at the highest level. The 1953 expedition, in which Art Gilkey died, also birthed the now famous Gilkey Memorial at the foot of K2.

In 1954, Achille Compagnoni and Lino Lacedelli, part of an Italian expedition, became the first men to summit K2.

An Indian attempt to climb K2 is, like the lay of the Karakoram, a knotty affair. For the simple reason that a sizable portion of this jagged range, along with K2, lay in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK).

Official attempts at bringing Indian and Pakistani climbers together have been very few — perhaps none — in the past. It reflected the situation facing the Himalayas; the world's biggest mountain range but lost to the web of strategic stand-offs that characterise relations between India, China and Pakistan. Sole exception was in 2002, when Harish Kapadia and Mandip Singh Soin, representing Indian mountaineers, and Sher Khan and Nazir Sabir from Pakistan, climbed peaks in the Swiss Alps under a joint initiative by UIAA and IUCN. That aside, the idea of Indo-Pak mountaineering expeditions appeared as stillborn as hopes for peace on Siachen Glacier.

And while Indian mountaineers dreamt of attempting K2, the Pakistanis recorded their first ascent in July 1977, when Ashraf Aman reached the summit.

The proposal tabled by Col Dhillon, now Principal of the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute (HMI) in Darjeeling, could change all that, if the ice on both sides of the Line of Control, thaws to make the expedition possible.

As he put it, mountaineering is both a sport and more than just a sport. Unlike in conventional sporting encounters where all effort is towards creating a winner and a loser, in a joint climbing expedition, both parties are welded together to achieve a common goal — that of ascending the chosen peak.

He has suggested five climbers and one leader from either side.

"They will be the best climbers from India and Pakistan," Col Dhillon said, promising a mix of military personnel and civilians.

Once the team is selected, members would train together for at least six months at HMI. Since K2 falls in POK and the joint attempt would be viewed as another Confidence Building Measure in the volatile relationship between India and Pakistan, Col Dhillon believed the project could be fine-tuned to reflect contemporary realities, once approval was gained and planning commenced. For example, the reopened road from Kashmir to Pakistan offers one more route to Karakoram, albeit symbolic given K2's location further east.

But what really captured his fancy was something else. Once the attempt on K2 is over, he would like the joint team to cross over to Siachen and clean up the glacier.

The HMI project — Col Dhillon submitted it to the Ministry of Defence on July 23 — had been approved by the Ministry and was awaiting clearance from the Chief Minister of West Bengal who is also on the institute's management council.

Thereafter, it should go for approval to the Home Ministry, and similar clearances from the Pakistani side.

The original estimate of an attempt in July 2006 may get delayed. Col Dhillon, amidst tackling a strike at HMI, was hoping for the best.

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