24 From Odisha Brave The Cold & Snowstorm To Climb Hampta Pass

Bhubaneswar: They braved the snowstorm and a chilling temperature of -5 °C to -10 °C to scale 14,065 feet and fly the national flag atop Hampta Pass in Himachal Pradesh, which falls under those rare, dramatic pass crossings in the Himalayas.

These 24 trekkers from Odisha were jointly selected by Kalinga Daredevils and Thrillophilia.

The expedition was flagged off by MP Sujeet Kumar and Assistant Commissioner (Income Tax) Hrudaya Das. IGP Amitabh Thakur had extended his wishes to the team led by Kalinga Daredevils president Satyapira Padhan.

The team included Debabrata Nayak (56), Prakash Satpathy (54), Subhankar Mohanty, Deepak Ranjan Das, Milan Manohar Priyarjan, and Dambru Behera from Bhubaneswar; Arun Kumar Mahant from Keonjhar; Nrusingha Charan Panda, Swaraj Rout, Reshab Panigrahi, Jyotish Kumar Bag, Abhijit Das, Jitendra Kumar Nayak, Jitendra Sahu, Jasobanta Dh. Majhi, Soumya Ranjan Rout, and Thakur Senapati from Kalahandi; Sachin Behera and Sobhan Rath from Nuapada; Aman Chhatria and Sambit Tripathy from Balangir; Biswajit Padhi from Deogarh; and Bisu Singh from Rourkela.

They started trekking from Jobra in Himachal Pradesh on June 8 morning and reached the summit on June 10 afternoon.

After attending a reception event in New Delhi, the team will arrive in Bhubaneswar on June 15.