TSAF team to scale Mr Kanamo

A 21-member team including women will set out for Mt Kanamo expedition in Spiti in Himachal Pradesh from August 11.
The team comprised of eleven employees of Tata Steel including three women employees and ten rural youths, said Padmashree seven-summit conqueror, Premlata Agarwal and Hemant Gupta of Tata Steel Adventure Foundation (TSAF).
Addressing a press conference here today, Gupta said the team will reach Kaza, the last road head of the expedition on August 14 and start trekking to Kibber, the highest village in the world, on August 16.
They will set out for the summit of Mt Kanamo (19,600 ft) from August 19-20 and return on August 25, Gupta, who and his women team mate from Tata Steel, Payo Murmu, had been forced to return from camp two of Mt Everest owing to the devastating earthquake that had struck Nepal and India in April last, said.

The expedition will focus on not only reaching the summit, but also on promoting leadership quality of the team members, he said.
Referring the Kibber village, he said it was perched atop a rocky ridge and offered a splendid view of the surrounding peaks, while Spiti is known as a cold desert with average temperatures of -30 degree Celsius in the winter and 1 to 28 degree Celsius in the summer.

Organised by Tata Steel, Gupta said all the eleven employees of the private steel major had their basic training and were even part of an expedition team to Kumaon (about 12,000 ft).

The expedition will be conducted under the supervision of an expert team including the chief of TSAF and first women conqueror of Mt Everest Bachendri Pal along with team members Annapurna, Mohan Rawat and Gupta.
The oldest member of the team member was Tapas Kumar Samanta (Electrical T and D department of the company).
Apart from Samanta, the other members were Piyush Singh, Vishwajit Sahu, Vaibhav Jain, Rahul Bahuguna, Milan Kumar, T Bhandari, Prashant Kushwaha and Ritu Kumari, Heeena Kumari and K Vandana (all women employees of the steel major).