Bachendri Pal

#28/100 in #100extraordinarywomen

Bachendri Pal earned a coveted place for herself in Indian history by becoming the first Indian woman to summit the Mount Everest, the highest mountain peak in the world. A free-willing, fearless, and adventure-loving girl, Bachendri always dreamt of being a mountaineer. By dint of her hard work and sheer determination, Bachendri Pal created history when she successfully summited the Everest, thereby becoming the first Indian woman to achieve the big feat. An exemplary public figure and a noted mountaineer, Bachendri Pal is revered as an icon for all aspiring mountain climbers. By her extraordinary fete, Bachendri Pal proved that a woman could foray into any field and become successful given she has enough sensibility and determination to work towards it. 

Bachendri Pal was born in May 24, 1954 in a village called Nakuri in Garhwal to parents - Shri Kishan Singh Pal and Smt. Hansa Devi. Her father was a border tradesman who supplied groceries from India to Tibet. From her early childhood, Bachendri Pal was a strong-spirited child and excelled in both academics and sports. It was at the initiation of her school principal that she was sent to college for higher studies. There she actively participated in sports and even bagged a gold medal in rifle shooting. Bachendri Pal went on to become the first girl to graduate from her village. Later on, she completed her M.A. in Sanskrit and then went on to complete her B. Ed. Driven by her passion for adventure, she enrolled in the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, which opened a whole slew of avenues for her. She encountered stiff opposition from her family and relatives when she decided to opt for a career as a professional mountaineer rather than as a schoolteacher.

Bachendri Pal got her first taste of mountaineering thrill while still at school, at the age of 12 when she along with her friends scaled a 13,123 ft. high peak and during a school picnic. In 1982, during her course at Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, she got the chance to mount Gangotri I (21,900 ft.) and Rudugaria (19,091 ft.). It was during this time, she got the job of an instructor at the National Adventure Foundation, an adventure school for women mountaineers. Soon after the completion of her mountaineering course, she got the chance to join the fourth expedition team headed for India's Mount Everest Mission, the Everest-84. After summitting a number of smaller peaks, she was selected to join India’s first mixed-gender team to attempt an expedition to Mount Everest. She along with her team members commenced their climb on May 1984. However, a sudden landslide at Lhotse glacier left her and her team members injured. However, Bachendri Pal remained undeterred and continued her climb until she reached the peak of the Everest on 23 May 1984 at 1:07 p.m., thereby becoming the first Indian woman and the 5th women in the world to climb the Mt. Everest. It was the team of 6 Indian women and 11 men when they started who were selected to attempt the mountaineering to the Mount Everest. She was the only woman in that group who continued the climbing and reached the summit. 

Pal achieved immediate fame, and in 1985 she returned to Mount Everest to successfully lead an Indo-Nepalese Everest Expedition women's team to the summit. This expedition made seven world records and created a benchmark in Indian mountaineering. She had represented her country as a first Indian woman mountaineer in the France during the “world eminent women mountaineering meet” of 1986. She participated to the summit of Mt. Gangotri for 6672 meter, Mt. Rudugaira for 5819 meter, Mt. Kedarnath dome expedition for 6380 meter in 1986, Mt. Blanc, europe for 15,782 ft in 1986, expedition to the Mt. Mana for 23000 ft in 1983, Mt. Srikailash expedition for 22,744 ft in 1988, Mt. Kamet and Mt. Abi-gamin expedition for 7756 meter and 7735 meter respectively in 1989, Mt. Ruapehu, Mt. Ernslow and Mt. Agrius expedition of New Zealand in 1990 and 1991 etc. She also led the women’s 2nd pre-Everest expedition in 1992 to the Mt. Mamostang Kangri for 24,686 ft and Tata’s Mt. Shivling expedition. In 1993, she organized the Indo-Nepalese Women Everest Expedition and she led an all-woman rafting expedition (18 women in 3 rafts) down the Ganges River from Haridwar to Kolkata in 1994, covering over 1,500 miles (2,500 km). They achieved this feat in 39 days. In 1997 she led an eight member all-woman team on a successful 2,500-mile (4,000-km) transit of the Himalayas, beginning in Arunachal Pradesh and concluding at the Siachen Glacier. She had also participated to the “first women’s international climbing seminar and study tour” of UK in the year 1998. She was leader of the “Vijay rally to kargil” in the year 1999. A rally, which was organized as a journey on the motorbikes by the women mountaineers in order to express the solidarity among Indian as well as a tribute to the brave Indian soldiers.

She has become the member at many organizations such as explorer’s club of New York, Royal geographical society UK, Himalayan mountaineering institute of Darjeeling, India International Centre of New Delhi, Himalayan club at Mumbai, Nehru Institute of mountaineering at Uttarkashi, Indian Mountaineering Foundation at New Delhi and various other government and mountaineering organizations. She is the author of book “Everest – My Journey to the Top”, an autobiography of her published by the national book trust, Delhi.

Bachendri Pal had bagged several awards and recognitions during her mountaineering career. In 1984, she received the first CSR Gold Medal closely followed by a Padmashree in 1984. She got the Calcutta Sports Journalist’s Association Award as well as the National Youth Award in the year 1985 and the Arjuna Award in the year 1986. She also got the Calcutta Ladies Study Group Award in the year 1986 and the FIE Foundation’s National Award in the year 1990. In 1990, her name was also listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the first Indian women to summit the Mt. Everest. She received the National Adventure Award in 1994 and a prestigious Yash Bharati Award from the Uttar Pradesh Government in 1995. In 1997, she received the honorary D.Litt. from the University of Garhwal and was also honored with the prestigious Mahila Shiromani Award. It was in this year that her name entered the Limca Book of Records. In 2013, she has been awarded as a first recipient of the Virangana Lakshmibai Rashtriya Samman for 2013-14 by the Ministry of Culture, MP Government for her big achievements in the adventure sports.

Contribution Apart from training corporate and scaling great heights, Bachendri Pal has made significant contribution in training women in mountaineering and river rafting. Bachendri Pal has played a great role towards the society through her big social services. Currently, she runs a big social service in Uttarkashi in association with her colleague Premlata Agarwal and a group of world-class mountain climbers (Mount Everest summiteers). They jointly carried out a relief and rescue operations for the people of villages located at farthest high altitude of Himalayas. Houses of the people living in those villages were destroyed because of the North India floods in 2013. She also has started a training schedule to train the most willing women in mountaineering and river rafting. It was as part of this initiative that she had organized the First Indian Women Trans-Himalayan Expedition, Indo-Nepalese Everest Expedition in 1985 (women’s team), Indo-Nepalese Women Everest Expedition in 1993 and supported in River Ganga Rafting Expedition (Haridwar to Kolkata) in 1994.

Currently, she is working as the Chief of Adventure Programs of Tata Steel Adventure Foundation of Tata Group where she conducts high-altitude training workshops for the corporate workforce. There she gives training to the management teams to bolster up their team spirit by teaching them skills to survive in challenging situations. Apart from this, Bachendri Pal also works as an active guide, training women in mountaineering and river rafting. 

Source: Google search and Wikipedia.