The First All Girls NCC Cadets To Scale Mt Everest

May 21^st and 22^nd 2016 turned out to be historic for the 10 National Cadet Corps girls. This has been the first time ever in the history of India that NCC girls successfully completed the expedition to Mount Everest.

Not only this, the team had many other firsts as well.

• The girls selected for the expedition were between the age group of 17 to 21 years. These girls were divided into two teams which were led by Col Gaurav Karki and Lt Col Vishal Alhawat. Team 1 led by Col Karki scaled Everest on 21^st May and team 2 led by Lt Col Vishal Alhawat scaled the summit on 22^nd May. Both teams were successful.

• The team had 3 students of Class XII … Cadets Tashi Laskit, Tsering Angmo and Stanzlin Laskit all three from Leh

• The lady officer, Deepika Rathore, who accompanied the cadets is the first lady officer of the Indian Army to Summit Everest twice (as this was her second expedition).

Before these girls and the team could achieve success because they went through vigorous trainings and selection procedure. The selection of the team was done from January to June 2014.

Initially, 100 cadets were selected based on trials from all over India. Then the selected 100 were sent for a rigorous training to Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, Darjeeling for special mountain training. Out of these 40 cadets were sent for the Pre-Everest Expedition to Mt. Deo-Tibba (19688 ft), Himanchal Pradesh, in April-May 2015. Of these 15 cadets were sent for a second Pre-Everest Expedition to Mt. Trishul (23360 ft) in August 2015. After this vigorous training, 10 cadets were selected. They were sent for a month long winter training to Siachen Glacier at the Indian Army’s Siachen Battle School, before they set off to Nepal.

(Also read - 7 Reasons To Plan Your Vacation Tour To Nepal) 

Apart from these 10 girl cadets the final team which scaled Everest consisted of four officers, two Junior Commissioned officers, seven other ranks and two girl cadet instructors.

Before scaling Mt Everest, the team reached base camp last month where they were divided into two groups and each group was acclimatized at four camps. Camp I and II were established at an altitude less than 7000m, while Camp III and IV were at less than 8000m altitude. Once the cadets were fully acclimatized (almost a month) and waiting for favorable weather conditions, the teams finally summitted the Everest on 21^st and 22^nd May.

The mountaineering expeditions were introduced in 1970 as adventure activity. The aim of the expedition is to instill a sense of discipline, comradeship, leadership and courage in the cadets along with strengthening their character. Since then, the NCC conducts a minimum of 2 expeditions every year, one each for boys and girls. Today they have successfully organized around 70 expeditions to various peak.

These young girls have just proved that no mountain is big and it can be conquered with determination, courage, and self motivation and not to forget team work. Hats off to these girls who with their outstanding achievement have brought the women power to the forefront.