Missing: Chhanda Gayen

The ridge between triumph and tragedy is narrow. On Sunday, Chhanda Gayen had scaled as first Indian woman Kangchenjunga, with 8586 meters the third highest mountain in the world. Four days later, she was confirmed dead because there is no more hope to recover her alive. When she was trying to climb also to the 8505-meter-high summit of Yalung Kang, also known as Kangchenjunga West, she and the Sherpas Dawa Wangchu (28.) and Migma Temba (24) were stuck by an avalanche, reports the “Himalayan Times” in Kathmandu. Due to bad weather, the search for the missing climbers has been abandoned .

Warned against double ascent

Chhanda on top of Everest in 2013

In 2013, Chhanda had succeeded in climbing to the top of two eight-thousanders within three days – using bottled oxygen. On 18 May, she had scaled Mount Everest, on 20 May Lhotse. “In 2013, when I came to know that she is planning an attempt on Lhotse after Everest, I tried to dissuade her”, said her mentor Basanta Singha Roy, who comes, as Chhanda, from the Indian region of Bengal and scaled Everest in 2010. “Even this time, when she told me that she plans to attempt Yalung Kang on the way back, I was surprised. I told her not to attempt this.”