c u on top - satyabrata dam

  Lake Deniz Considering the fact that I travel around the world, specifically looking for peaks towering above 4000m, I was pleasantly surprised when I learned that Turkey has an amazing mountain range near the Black Sea, where the highest summit nearly touches 4000m and is referred by the locals as the Turkish Switzerland. This happened just the previous month where I was going to guide an international group to the top of Turkey, aka Mt Ararat, the oft claimed resting place of THE ARK. I have been to Turkey twice before, on both occasions merely leading groups to Ararat and taking a flight out. But this time I had several weeks to spare after Ararat and I pondered if there was any other mountain worth exploring and climbing in Turkey. Google came up promptly with Kaçkar Range. I found one blog by a solo guy and his pictures sealed the deal.   Flowers everywhere  Post Ararat, my climbing partner and friend, Kiki from Greece and I headed for this little known elusive ...

  I have a friend, who has achieved some of the most coveted landmarks in the climbing adventure world. He is few years younger than I and on and off I have been his mental trainer and used to be his mentor and climbing instructor when he had just started his climbing. Just a day before, he messaged me and wanted to schedule a one on one mental training session. It seemed urgent so we met up virtually and spoke for nearly 2 hours. You will be surprised what transpired and why he wanted to talk to me. But first let me give you some of his achievements and lifestyle in a nutshell. He has completed the seven summits and Adventure Grand Slam challenge (climbing the highest peaks of all the seven continents and also skiing to the geographical North and South Poles) all in one attempt over a span of 3 years. I was his guide and leader in several of these climbs. He has also climbed five 8000m plus peaks besides Everest. Which means he has climbed 6 of the world’s 14 highest peaks s...

  I have often been asked, what is the single most important factor necessary to summit Mt Everest or any high and difficult mountain for that matter. All the things like right equipment, training, goal, experience, etc. are important yet would come to nothing without perseverance to persist. And I feel this applies to anything in life, be it in your profession, family, business, ideologies, etc. Like I have often said that everything begins with a dream, an idea, with a goal and then you must take action in pursuit of that goal and dream, but then if you do not persist and continue to persevere with your action then you won’t reach where you wish to; be it the summit of a mountain or the summit of your chosen dream. Without persistence all your dreams will be like a half baked cake or a half ripened mango. To see the fruition of our dreams there is no other way but being persistent. Now whatever I wrote above is a no-brainer, and many have said it before. And most o...

  At the tender age of ten and dare I say that being a naive child when I conjured up my ultimate dream to climb every mountain and to visit every country in the world (have failed so far on both counts) I had absolutely no idea how on earth would I fulfil either of these. Soon I realized that the former was downright impossible and improbable while the latter was nearly so. So I took every opportunity offered or created when none was forthcoming to do exactly that. To boldly climb mountains that are rarely climbed and to go wherever I could. I firmly belief that if we do pursue our dreams with single minded dedication and focus, where no obstacle seem to be so and where we listen to none except our own beating heart, then life does open incredible doors and bring us on a collision course with incredible people who would open those doors for us. Therefore I knew that if I never veered away from my dreams then no matter what, no matter when, they would surely begin to unravel ...

  I was recently interviewed in the USA, where one of the pertinent questions asked was – how do I define passion.   My single sentence answer was – passion is something that I do purely for the joy and sake of doing it.   And then I elaborated: when I do something without any ulterior or other motive, besides that of just doing it, then I am following my passion. In short, when I climb a mountain I am not doing it for fame, money, success, glory or anything at all, not even to reach the top. There is no other purpose within me other than just climbing the mountain. And this is also an offshoot of what we often term as living in the moment fully and unconditionally, we also call this meditation, we also call this pure love and we can combine all of these to define our passion.   But if you ask me, then my answer to what is passion is when I cannot find a reason for doing it yet I do it then I am truly following my passion. If I can define my reason and mo...