Drawing first blood..

The period between February end till mid April, will be counted as the most crucial or high endurance time period I have ever faced. It was a time frame that kept on throwing back one question to us "Here is a new problem, how do you get past this?". To see my impulsive idea take the shape of reality, it took two warriors (later on well supported by a third one) battle various odds to get the first smell of victory.

Impulsive idea: Trekking to Qomolangma Camp III (Adv. Base Camp)

Problems in achieving:

• Team size for the expedition, with initial information, couldn't be as low as 2 (barring me, only Anup had subscribed to the idea). Convincing more people to join in was a challenge. The expedition being a high altitude, high cost, high risk affair, not too many would opt for it. And if someone did, it was utmost important to check the trekking resume of the person to ensure a successful mission.
• Setting up an itinerary was not an easy task given the fact that driving to Base Camp was the only option provided by all trek organisers in Tibet.
• Trekking in Tibet was a totally different ball game as compared to trekking in Nepal. We had been-there-done-that in Nepal, and knew a lot of ways to get it done in Nepal. Tibet brought along with it a ton of questions.
• Expedition cost per person was an amount much higher than what we could arrange for, as individuals, without appropriate funding.
• If we would have to arrange for the funds ourselves, we would be denting our financial situation in a considerable manner, leaving us in a precarious position till we would recover later.
  

With all of the above to address, we (Anup and I) maintained a firm stand - Destination Qomolangma, come what may. About arranging for finances, we kept on debating how would it be like to land up in a situation with no one funding us. We decided to address that later.

The next issue to address was building a strong team. We had luckily trekked enough in the winter season. It was important to search amongst known ones, those who were the fittest and would be willing to join the expedition. Abhijit Karmarkar was one name that immediately struck both me and Anup. Abhijit had been to Everest Base Camp (South Face) in 2005, was an avid trekker, and a fitness freak to say the least. It was sad to know that friends from our core trekking group (Vinod Sairaman - yet another EBC mate, Amit Kasture - Sahyadri champ) wouldn't be able to join.

I had recently been acquainted with Shantanu Gogate, someone who was in the same school (but in a different time shift) as I was. Shantanu had trekked previously in the Himalayas, and otherwise too was very fit. I categorically remember, it took me enough time, many emails and one animated meeting to convince Shatanu that trekking to Qomolangma Camp III was an opportunity not to be squandered. Making him buy the idea of trekking to Qomolangma Camp III instead of the existing plan of trekking to Everest Base Camp (South Face) was one hell of a job. Mr. Gogate signed on, after due deliberation (a sensible thing).

Tibetan trek organisers hardly seemed to have presence on the web. All the treks in Tibet are managed by Tibetan locals, but Nepalese travel agents are the interfaces with whom a client (customer) interacts. On the trek to Everest Base Camp (South Face, Nepal) in November 2004, the trek organiser with whom we had operated was Gurkha Encounters Pvt. Ltd, managed by one Mr. Rajendra Bajgain (we refer to him as Raj).

Raj was very pleased to hear from us and promised that he would most certainly be glad to help us achieve our dream. We were expecting a lot from him. Not that we could strike a good deal (as far as price was concerned), but from our past experience, trust made a lot of difference and good service was something more important here. The factor that was most dear to our heart, being able to trek up to Everest Base Camp and not drive, was also taken care of by Raj. He had given us an itinerary that was custom cut to our requirements.

Over the month of March, all issues were resolved, barring a very important one - arrangement of funds. It was decided amongst us that we should try our level best to secure funds by mid April. We had a certain watermark we had set as the maximum we could afford by ourselves. Rest of it had to come from funds. While this was committed to, I was more than willing to stretch the date just because the impulse, the dream had put me beyond standard limits of rationales. Same was true with Anup. I knew this because I and Anup have been close buddies for quite some time now. It was Shantanu about whom we were not too sure, plainly because we weren't knowing him too well if he would bow down to the dream in case no one would fund us.

The second week of April proved to be the turning point in the entire game. I would still rate it as the biggest breakthrough that converted the trek status from "dream" to a "likelihood". Shantanu was able to secure funds to cover part of his amount, a big boost to him as well as us. There was no stopping us now..