Climbs by Indian Expeditions. Three persons lost their lives in an attempt to climb Mukerbey (19,910 feet). The group left Manali on October 13. On the 20th the fourth member, Hoshang Pavri found it difficult to go beyond 14,000 feet and returned to Manali with the Sherpa Bemba. Bemba rejoined Australian Geoffrey Leonard Hill and Suresh Kumar on the 24th. When the three failed to return on the 31st as scheduled, first a Gurkha porter and then two instructors from the Himachal Mountaineering School, Manali, were sent to look for them. They found the climbers bodies in full mountaineering kit in a tent buried under the snow at the height of 15,500 feet above Beas Kund. They apparently reached that height on October 23 but were held up by bad weather. They decided to come down on the morning of the 26th if the weather did not improve, but tragedy struck during the night, when the tent was submerged by snow. Four students of the Himachal Mountaineering Institute, Manali, climbed Hanuman Tibba (19,250 feet) on October 3. Seven students climbed in July and August in the central Lahoul Valley. They climbed in seven days Kulu Pumori (21,000 feet), Neel Dome (19,500 feet), Namgyal Peak (18,700 feet) and Rocky Challenge (18,500 feet) and attempted unsuccessfully two unnamed peaks of 20,000 and 20,500 feet. The students were Lakashmi Narayan, V. J. Pinto, M. C. Mohan, B. Singh, U. Ganguly, G. Dave and R. J. Gupta.

KAMAL K. Guha, Himalayan Club