PROFILE

She is forever in love with Mountains
Dehradun, January 14

An interaction with Principle of the National Institute of Mountaineering (NIM) of Uttarkashi LP Sharma by a mere chance changed the course of life of Dr Harshwanti Bisht, who is now serving as the Principle of Government Degree College at Doiwala. She stays in Dehradun.

She went on to scale the Nanda Devi peak (7816 mt) and received prestigious Arjuna Award in 1984 for her expedition. She established a nursery for birch leaves (Bhojpatra) at Chirvasa in 1991 and replenished the denuded jungles of Bhojwasa with 12,000 new plantations.

She is resolute, rugged and compassionate like mountains.

Being the fourth child among seven of an army officer, she was never differentiated on the basis of gender or any other bias.

She began her career as a lecturer, took up a mountaineering course during vacation and also pursued PhD in Tourism in the Garhwal Himalyas, all side by side.

Her mountaineering stint began with easy Black Peak. Encouraged by the first success, she cleared the test for Nanda Devi by scaling Gangotri-1 (6,672 mt) and ascended Nanda Devi (7,816 mt) in 1981, a feat which has never been repeated by any other woman.

Reminiscing about her expedition, she said, “I swung with ropes with my head upside down with 20 kg bag pack on my back high above in the mountains. The death seemed imminent but the survival instinct propelled me to regain my balance.” Her fingers got affected due to blizzard by continuously climbing for 22 hour. It took her a month to complete the expedition.

Her mountaineering odyssey, which began in the year 1978, came to an abrupt end with her Mount Everest expedition in 1984 when Bachendri Pal, a team member, became the first woman to scale the world’s highest peak. Feeling dejected, Bisht refused the offer when the team leader gave her last preference among girls to attempt the final climb.

Distraughted, Bisht bade farewell to mountaineering and took up the arduous task of eco-regeneration and re-forestation. She planted 12,000 birch plants in denuded forests of Bhojwasa while working as an Assistant professor in Government College, Uttarkashi.

She fought a relentless battle with the Forest Department of the Uttarakhand Government when they arraigned her of being an accomplice in killing wild animals. She, however, won the case. The genesis of suspicion was the white animal skin which was found from the possession of one of her worker employed at her nursery at Chidwasa.

Loss of vision in her right eye after a car accident in 2007 in Uttarkashi has not diminished her zeal for mountains. Taking help of a student, Anil Singh Rawat, whom she supported with lodging and finances at her own residence for the past six years, and few others, she covered the entire Gangotri glacier area. “I clicked 2,035 duplicates of the photographs clicked by Samuel Burns, renowned

British photographer, in 1866 of the Gangotri glacier region by going to the same spot. I then compared and found receding of Gangotri glacier by about five kilometre. I’ll soon write a book on the subject.” Bisht has also written a book, ‘Tourism in Garhwal Himalayas’, and edited ‘Tourism and Himalayan Bio-divesity’.

She also launched welfare projects in interior villages of Raithal and Tharali for women and children. She is happy being single as she is one of those persons who consider solitude a bliss. Her staunch faith in the Almighty and benevolence of nature never let fear cripple her determination to tread treacherous mountainous path. Three years short of her retirement, she wants to pen down more books on her favourite subject- Himalayan Mountains.

Source: Tribune