c u on top - satyabrata dam

Hi friends after three days of seeking inputs regarding what kind of posts would you wish me to write, I have collected nearly two dozen requests and suggestions through FB and email. To summarize all of them of which many were similar though differently worded, I would write the following posts in the coming days: (a) my top 10 climbs of South America (b) how can a beginner plan, prepare, train and start going into the mountains (c) wild life encounters (d) my extreme adventures from lesser known spots on Earth Of those that I cannot encompass in a post I would like to mention the one from Nadya who wanted me to write about an experience that I would want to be the base of a documentary. There’s only one experience of mine that can justify this and that’s my walk across the entire length of Africa at the age of 18. It is too vast and mindboggling an experience to be put in a post. I would be coming out with a book on that and it can surely be made into a Hollywood thriller. As for Kar...

I am always asked what has been my best climb, the most dangerous, most technical, highest, finest, toughest, etc, etc and it often leaves me wondering for words. At times I end up with the cliché, ‘it’s yet to come’. But today let me share with you the ‘Climb of my Life’. Ceillac would not mean much or nothing at all to most ice climbers outside of France & Italy. I take you to a time when Ceillac was known even less, only to handful of climbers keen to find unclimbed lines and risk everything into the unknown. A sleepy and dreamy French village spitting distance from the Italian border, Ceillac was not discovered before the late-nineties and has only recently been included in the list of French Ski and ice climbing locations. My long standing buddy and fellow alpinist, the outrageously crazy climber Ludo and I had put up few routes on Aiguille du Dru in and around the famous Bonatti Pillar and were hungry for more when he drops Ceillac. I hadn’t heard the name before. We dump our...

Tears flow down the speaker’s face as 226 pair of hands clap in unison to fill up the auditorium with a resounding applaud. Standing right at the back leaning against the wall I beam through my ears. The speaker is a young man of 76 just back from a high and difficult Himalayan trek two months ago. Three years before he was completely wheel-chair bound having lost the entire use of his lower limbs due arthritis and lung cancer and all hopes along with. No one expected him to live for long or have a life if at all. What he hadn’t lost though was a simple wish. He is, was my friend Charlie (as I called him) and he would die two years hence. He never went back to the Himalaya, instead in those two years he inspired and motivated thousands of people, filling them up with hope, with impossible dreams and helping them redefine their limits. It is my privilege to have known him in my life. This is his story. Charlie; here’s to you… My friend calls me one day, ‘Satya, my grandpa wants to meet ...

Few days ago I gave a talk at Chennai where a fellow came up to me and said, ‘I am going to attempt Everest next year; any tips for me?’ He is a likeable lanky lad with a broad grin and the right attitude to succeed in life in whatever he chooses. Another girl, likeable lanky lass with an infectious grin said, ‘I am desperate mountaineer, what should I do?’ That set me thinking about climbing, something I do so often that I never give it a real thought… how many times do you think that you are breathing! With unlimited supply of equipment, time and good weather anything in the world, natural or man-made can be climbed; by anyone… almost. I know this is a bold statement and perhaps no one has ever made before, still I will stick to it even at the risk of criticism from my fellow climbing friends. To me climbing is a way of life and I preach climbing for fun and for everyone. This must naturally lead us to the following fundamental questions to which I would endeavor to answer in this po...

I am a weaver. I weave stories of distant lands, forbidden worlds, mystic mountains, of people not seen or heard, of human stories that by far exceed our wildest imaginations and of course stories of sheer stupidity. Funny and hilarious, absurd and unbelievable mostly. The characters are people like you and those I meet during my travels, the threads are the collective experience that I gather from each one of you and the colors come from your dreams and wishes. And I weave them all together to make up my stories. Nothing is original; they have only been arranged in an original form and design. There is absolutely nothing that any of us can ever discover, design or relate in original that has not already been told or designed by someone somewhere somehow. As a story weaver my only role is to bring these collective people and experiences together at one place in a lucid manner. During my story telling sessions I am often asked to relate my life-and-death stories. Moments from where I sh...

I wake up with a start. The tiny tent is swinging gently, brushing against the rock every now and then. A strange sound permeates into the wild night. Switching on my headlamp I look at my companion sleeping peacefully on the space-starved floor. I know there’s nothing but empty air beneath us. My Suunto (watch) says it is 1.20 am with inside air hovering around 14 C below zero. It’s in mid July, right in the heart of winter of Southern Hemisphere. The swing of our tent tells me that a buffeting gale has us in its grip. Nearly 3000 ft vertically above ground is a very exciting place to be, though not necessarily a comfortable one… certainly not for what I have in mind. If any observer could even see us from ground, stuck as we are like a fly on that massive face of rock and ice, rearing up like the raised hood of a serpent into the dark sky, he is certain to wonder if this fly is ever going to fly or fall away. I smile to no one in particular as I gaze again at my supine companion. Wi...