West Bengal teacher eyes crowdfunding to scale twin summits

KOLKATA: Piyali Basak, the woman from Chandernagore, who is attempting to summit Mount Annapurna and Mount Makalu without supplemental oxygen support, is tapping a crowdfunding source now to meet the expenditure. Once successful, she will have the credit of climbing six 8,000 meter peaks without supplementary oxygen.
While climbing the two peaks will require more than Rs 31 lakh, Basak was able to arrange only Rs 2 lakh so far. A mathematics teacher at a government school, Basak is now looking forward to pooling the amount in the next six days. “Climbing Mount Annapurna and Makalu at a stretch without supplementary oxygen is unheard of. People have even called it suicidal as Annapurna is a very dangerous peak. But I needed to prove myself once again. This is my contribution to the celebration of women power,” Basak said.
The maths teacher had been saving up some money, but every dime was spent during her expedition to Mount Everest and Mount Lhotse last year. Basak, in fact, had to delay her expedition plan due to paucity of funds. “I tried to arrange funds from corporate sponsors, but unfortunately I am yet to get any favourable response from them,” she said.
While climbing Mount Makalu needs more technical expertise, Mount Annapurna is considered one of the deadliest peaks due to its steep slopes, avalanche-prone zones and unpredictable weather conditions. Situated in Nepal the troubled zone starts after camp II when climbers reach a ridge-like route of Annapurna.
There is a large overhanging glacier which is very fragile. Portions of that glacier break almost every day resulting in an avalanche. The fatality of the climbers is around 33%, making the mountain so dangerous.