Tenzing Norgay, born Namgyal Wangdi, and also referred to as Sherpa Tenzing, was a Nepalese-Indian Sherpa mountaineer. He was one of the first two people known to certainly reach the summit of Mount Everest, which he accomplished with Edmund Hillary on 29 May 1953. Time named Norgay one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.
Nawang Gombu was a Sherpa mountaineer who was the first man in the world to have climbed Mount Everest twice.
Tashi Wangchuk Tenzing is an Indian-born Australian Sherpa mountaineer. His maternal grandfather, Tenzing Norgay, made the first ascent of Mount Everest on 29 May 1953.
Major Hari Pal Singh Ahluwalia was an Indian mountaineer, author, social worker and Indian Ordnance Factories Service (IOFS) officer. During his career he made contributions in the fields of adventure, sports, environment, disability and social work. He is one of six Indian men and the twenty first man in the world to climb Mount Everest. On 29 May 1965, 12 years to the day from the first ascent of Mount Everest, he made the summit with the fourth and final successful attempt of the 1965 Indian Everest Expedition along with H. C. S. Rawat and Phu Dorjee Sherpa. This was the first time three climbers stood on the summit together.
Captain Mohan Singh Kohli is an internationally renowned Indian mountaineer. An officer in the Indian Navy, who later joined the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, he led the 1965 Indian expedition which put nine men on the summit of Everest, a world record which lasted for 17 years.
Narendra Dhar Jayal (Nandu Jayal) (25 June 1927 – 28 April 1958) was an Indian mountaineer and an officer of the Bengal Sappers and the Indian Army Corps of Engineers. He is credited with pioneering and patronizing early post-Independence mountaineering in India, and was the founder principal of the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute. He encouraged the youth of India to take up mountaineering, and has been called the "Marco Polo of Indian Mountaineering".
Climbing locations in India allow both amateurs and professionals to go rock climbing and have become popular among tourists. Given below are the names of some of the major destinations for rock climbing in India to give one a better idea of the places where they can engage in this game.
Reena Kaushal Dharmshaktu is the first Indian woman to ski from coast of Antarctica to South Pole covering a distance of 900 kilometers.
Mandip Singh Soin is a prominent Indian mountaineer, explorer, adventure travel expert, environmentalist, speaker and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He has spent over forty years in the field of adventure, having gone on expeditions to all the seven continents of the world. His mountaineering ascents and explorations include several Indian “firsts” like the first Indian ascent of Mount Meru in 1986 in the Himalayas as well as several first Indian ascents in the French and Swiss Alps, Italian Dolomites, Wales and Scotland. He is a strong advocate of responsible tourism and Founder President of the Ecotourism Society of India
Tashi and Nungshi Malik are the first siblings and twins to climb the Seven Summits and reach the North and South Poles and complete the Adventurers Grand Slam and Three Poles Challenge.
Colonel Narendra Kumar, PVSM, KC, AVSM, FRGS was an Indian soldier and mountaineer. He is known for his expeditions across various mountain ranges such as the Himalayas and Karakorams, and respective subranges such as the Pir Panjals and Saltoro Mountains. His reconnaissance efforts on the Siachen glacier were key to the Indian Army's reclamation of the forward posts of the glacier in Operation Meghdoot in 1984. He was the deputy leader of the first successful Indian Mount Everest expedition in 1965.
Ang Tharkay was a Nepalese mountain climber and explorer who acted as sherpa and later sirdar for many Himalayan expeditions. He was "beyond question the outstanding sherpa of his era" and he introduced Tenzing Norgay to the world of mountaineering.
Mohan Singh Gunjyal is an Indian mountaineer and adventure sportsman. He is one of the summiters of Mount Everest, entering the list when he successfully climbed the highest peak in the world on 12 May 1992. He achieved the feat, taking the Southeast ridge route via the south face, as a member of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police Everest expedition group, which included Santosh Yadav, the first woman to summit the peak twice within a year. He has received the Tenzing Norgay National Award for outstanding achievement from the President of India in 2004. He is a former Assistant Commandant of Indo-Tibetan Border Police and presently working as Director at the Uttarkashi-based Nanda Devi Institute of Adventure Sports and Outdoor Education. The Government of India awarded him with Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award 2004 in lifetime achievement category and the fourth highest civilian honor of the Padma Shri, in 2006, for his contributions to the sport of mountaineering.
Indian Mountaineering Foundation is an apex national body which organize and support, mountaineering and rock climbing expeditions at high altitudes in the Himalayas. The organization also promotes and encourages schemes for related adventure activities and environment-protection work in the Indian Himalayas. IMF has organized many expeditions to the high peaks in the Himalayas including Mount Everest.
Aparna Kumar is an Indian mountaineer. She was awarded the Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award in 2018 for land adventure by the President of India.
The role of The Doon School in Indian mountaineering describes the formative links between The Doon School, an all-boys boarding school in Dehradun, India and early post-Independence Indian mountaineering. From the 1940s onwards, Doon's masters and students like A.E. Foot, R.L. Holdsworth, J.A.K. Martyn, Gurdial Singh, Jack Gibson, Aamir Ali, Hari Dang, Nandu Jayal, were among the first to go on major Himalayan expeditions in a newly independent nation. These early expeditions contributed towards laying the foundation of mountaineering in an independent India.
The Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award, formerly known as the National Adventure Awards is the highest adventure sports honour of the Republic of India. The award is named after Tenzing Norgay, one of the first two individuals to reach the summit of Mount Everest along with Edmund Hillary in 1953. It is awarded annually by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. The recipients are honoured for their "outstanding achievement in the field of adventure activities on land, sea and air" over the last three years. The lifetime achievement is awarded to individuals who have demonstrated excellence and have devoted themselves in the promotion of adventure sports. As of 2020, the award comprises "a bronze statuette of Tenzing Norgay along with a cash prize of ₹15 lakh (US$19,000)."
Balwant Singh Sandhu (1934-2010) was an Indian mountaineer and a colonel in the Indian Army. He made the first ascent of Changabang along with Sir Chris Bonington in 1974. In 1981, he received the Arjuna Award for excellence in mountaineering, and in 2010, after his death in an accident, he was posthumously awarded the Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award, the highest adventure sports honour of India. Mountaineer M S Kohli described him as a "world-class climber".
Subedar Major and Honorary Captain Chhering Norbu Bodh SC (retd.) is a retired personnel of the Indian Army, known for his mountaineering achievements while in the army. Bodh holds a number of Indian summiting records related to 8,000m peaks. Among others, he is the first Indian mountaineer to have climbed six of the fourteen 8000m peaks in the world, and the first Indian to stand atop Lhotse and Annapurna-1.
