Shimla :

Continuing with its 14-year-old tradition of mountaineering, a five-member team of students of Bishop Cotton School (BCS) embarked upon an expedition to DeoTibba (6,100 mt) near Manali on Saturday.

Led by Mahim Gupta, the team comprises class XI-XII students Sanjeev Sikri, Madhav, Shubham and Anirudh Depta and staff member Dinesh Kumar. “We expect that the expedition would foster a team spirit in us. The aim of the expedition is not just to conquer the peaks, but also to pay homage to the heights and learn about the nuances of nature from it,” the students said in unison before undertaking the expedition.

Spokesperson of BCS, Praveen Dharma, said, “BCS has a long mountaineering tradition which started with expedition to Leo Parigyal in 1999. The significant aspect of the flag off to Deo Tibba was that it coincided with the 154{+t}{+h} annual speech day celebrated on Saturday and the honours were done by old Cottonian and industrialist D C Anand, who was recently knighted by the French republic for improving diplomatic and business relations between India and France.”

BCS has the distinction of having Pargyal Mountaineering Club which was started by Colonel R L Dhaliwal in 1999 and the boys have scaled as many as eleven major peaks till now, sources said. Cottonians hold the distinction of having scaled many peaks with height of over 21,000 ft, including Mt Phawaranga and Mt Frey in  Sikkim  (in 2005), Mt Menthosa (2008), Mt Leopargyal (1999) besides Stok Kangrhi (in 2003) Bidhan Parvat (in 2003), Jaonli and Mt Bandarpunch (2012).

To commemorate the sesquicentennial celebrations, an expedition of 12 boys, along with two staff members, had scaled upto the base camp of Mt Everest and Kalapathar at 18,195 ft in 2009, they said.

source: http://www.articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> Education / TNN / June 02nd, 2013