Nanda Devi Sanctuary is closed - Joint Indo USA scam

himadventures

I am also hearing a lot of stories related to NUKE thing...but it does not seems to be true. Sanctuary had been closed due to poachers and trekkers/climbers who are coming with lot of garbage and leaving behind in open.

About INDIAN RED TAPE-common...whole world knows about it..whats so strange about it..we are like this only !!

gs_uppal

Is it really closed now or has it been reopened

Check this link of Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam Ltd.
http://www.gmvnl.com/nandadevipark.html

It says it has been reopened and 2 groups of 5 each are allowed per day to enter the park.

rickshawwallah

The GMVN website is vague about what is open, using terms like "sanctuary", "outer sanctuary", and "inner sanctuary" in their promotion of trips to the Nanda Devi National Park. The Nanda Devi Sanctuary, however, is best defined as the elusive open grasslands at the foot of Nanda Devi peak, which are so difficult of access that no human (at least so the story goes) was ever able to reach them before 1934, when Eric Shipton, Bill Tillman and their party managed the feat. By this definition, the GMVN treks do not reach the Sanctuary. The treks extend about halfway between Lata, the last village on the route, and the Sanctuary itself. The trek does cross through the Nanda Devi National Park, as advertised.

This is not to say that the trek the GMVN advertises is not a beautiful or worthwhile journey. It is! Once again, though, the trek does not extend to the Nanda Devi Sanctuary.

NEVSAY_D

''after the 1962 invasion of India by China,the CIA wated to keep an eye on China and they had planned this Operation Blue Mountain,according to which they were supposed to put a Space Nuclear Auxiliary Power or (SNAP ) somewhere at the top of Nanda Devi with the help of both American and Indian mountaineers so that they can keep an eye on the Chinese side through this tracking device.The best mountaineers were chosen for this and they even had a practice session somewhere in Alaska( most probably McKinly).The year was 1965 ,the americans were called ' friends' and the Indians were called 'members'.The Americans even used ' man-tan' to look black and they all use to talk in code.The SNAP actually contained Plutonium 238.
During their frst climb their whole mission failed due to a storm and they had to leave the SNAP somewhere near the summit.The next year they went again to finish the job but an avalanche had swept away the whole thing and it hasnt been found till date.That explains why the Govt of India had closed down the Nanda devi Santuary. ''

nyraghu

Mod note: The following posts (upto and including post 43) have been moved from another thread as requested; the thread in question is HERE

The beginning of this post may therefore appear a little disjointed.



The cited news reports say that the garbage was dumped by pilgrims to Hemkund, so I guess it was mainly confined to the trail from Govind Ghat to Hemkund. Fortunately, not many pilgrims seem to venture into the Valley of Flowers.

There was a `Clean Nanda Devi' expedition in 2001, conducted by the Garhwal Rifles. They apparently removed 80 sacks (800 kgs) of garbage from the Sanctuary. There is a report on this expedition by V. P. Uniyal of the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), who accompanied the expedition, at http://www.wii.gov.in/faculty/vpuniy...expedition.pdf One reason there aren't more and larger such efforts in the Sanctuary could be the inaccessibility of the area. From what I have read, even when the Sanctuary was open, apart from expeditions, only a few shepherds from Lata and Reni used to go there for grazing their herds.

In any case, the garbage problem around Nanda Devi seems to go far beyond good old ornery trash. Apparently, in the sixties the CIA and Indian intel agencies conducted several expeditions to plant nuclear-powered surveillance devices on the peak of Nanda Devi. They lost one of these devices on the mountain, leading to fears of radioactive contamination of the Rishi Ganga, which drains the glaciers there. Here are some relevant articles:

Spy Robert Schaller's life of secrecy, betrayal and regrets: In 1965, Schaller was part of an American spy team that tried to place a nuclear-powered surveillance device on top of Nanda Devi, one of the highest mountains in the world. (Carol Smith, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 26 March 2007.)

Proof of Plutonium in Takeda's Ganges tributary silt sample: Boston Chemical Data Corp., a private environmental engineering firm in Massachusetts, analyzed the sample and detected plutonium 239 with 95 percent certainty. (Article of 26 March 2007 by Carol Smith at Pete Takeda's Web site. Takeda is an American mountaineer who conducted an expedition in 2005 to Nanda Kot to investigate the spy story, and wrote the book `An Eye at the Top of the World' about it.)

Air America: Helio H-500 Twin Couriers Some Air America pilots flew Twin Helios as instructors for the ARC or Aviation Research Center at Charbatia Air Base ("Oak Tree") in India. ... the Twin Courier would provide a shuttle between New Delhi and a staging base close to Nanda Devi Sanctuary ... (Article of 29 May 2006 by Joe F. Leeker, U. of Texas at Dallas. Leeker's stories are reminiscent of the pilot Ricardo in John le Carre's `Honourable Schoolboy' :-)

Raghu.

__________________
colorless green ideas sleep furiously

Dilliwala

It's true about that nuclear device, and that's the main reason the govt doesn't want anyone in the area. M.S. Kohli and Kenneth Conboy quite explicitly say so in their book, also referred to in the Air America story.

I wonder what they are being so coy about, this is more likely than not Gauchar. Specially when they've already mentioned ARC Charbatia; Gauchar is the only airfield in the area and was a known ARC base, until it was no longer required. All the locals knew about it, specially when they saw aircraft landing and taking off but nobody wud say who was coming or going!
Of course I say this on the presumption that a Twin Courier needs a certain length of runway for take-off and landing runs. If it doesn't and can land on a patch of grass, e.g., I cannot imagine where this staging post cud be nearer to Nanda Devi.


Trivia: A relative served half a decade at IAF Charbatia . Their job was to service the ARC. They never knew exactly who was coming or going either, only the AF station commander did.

nyraghu

I haven't read Conboy and Kohli, but have seen snippets from the book, where they mention Gauchar as a landing station for HH-43B Husky helicopters.

Perhaps the reason for closing the area is a mixture of the above, and a belated sense of environmental responsibility. Bill Aitken, in several of his writings, unblushingly takes credit for waking up the government to the environmental damage in the Inner Sanctuary and moving them to close it.

Personally, I am happy that the Inner Sanctuary is closed to climbers. Of course, even if it were open, going there would have been beyond my abilities (it is by no means a "trekking" destination). Discounting that, I don't believe that one should go to such a place just "because it's there." It is good to know that there are places of such profound beauty, without feeling the urge to intrude into them.

Must have been an interesting relative that :-)

Raghu.

Dilliwala

Hey, thanks for the link, Raghu, refreshed my rusty memory. I've browsed thru the book earlier (have it since '03 ) but forgot all the references to Gauchar and also Kalsi; didn't know, or rather forgot, that the latter was used by ARC as a support base for the former. Of course it's permanently closed now. Also don't recollect that Gauchar used to be a WW2 airstrip which had been closed, and specially reopened for the secret missions.

You may like to get hold of it sometime. Lots of detail about how the mountaineering logistics and supply chain were handled, the mountaineers themselves, the sherpas, etc. Also how ARC, ITBP, SFF came to be formed, and then all the spy-stuff. Still, not out of place on a 'Himalayan' bookshelf. All in all quite fascinating stuff, specially for those who know the area. The central focus of the book is Kohli, in fact remove Conboy's name from the cover and it reads like a quasi-autobiography of Kohli.
The India publisher is Harper Collins, New Delhi.

Quote:

Perhaps the reason for closing the area is a mixture of the above, and a belated sense of environmental responsibility.

That's true, was feeling too lazy to go into other reasons in my previous post, so just listed the main one. The environmental reason is secondary, unfortunately, you know what the overall attitude of the powers that be is to environmental matters.

Quote:

Bill Aitken, in several of his writings, unblushingly takes credit for waking up the government to the environmental damage in the Inner Sanctuary and moving them to close it.

..
But not till he had trekked there himself. Or becos of it, he wud claim.
Except, I don't know where all the damage is coming from since there are no villages in the core area, specially the inner sanctuary. The book describes what a difficult route it is up the gorge, and how they had to deceitfully hire porters in Joshimath ("we're going to Lata") to carry their stuff becos of the non-existence of villlages (after Reni).
I did read somewhere that grazing around the area was creating a problem and that the authorities have banned it or are in the process of doing so.

Still is, - the bit above and some in the other thread I linked I only gleaned earlier this year.

Dilliwala

So I browsed thru the book again, Raghu, and it turns out there was a major factor for environmental damage in the Inner Sanctuary - garbage. Left behind by various mountaineering and trekking expeditions from '74 to '82, when the area was closed.
In 1993, the Army's Corps of Engineers did get special permission though, "to mount a scientific and ecological expedition". They were accompanied by scientists from the WII. They also brought back a ton of garbage.

BTW, the helicopters used for the operations were primarily Soviet Mi-4's, also referred to in that tripod link, later replaced by French Alouette 3's. The Huskies were used only in 1966 for the search operations. They were deemed unnecessary in the following year.
What I also didn't know (or forgot) was that another such device had been planted on Nanda Kot. And it got lost too! But that one they managed to find, undamaged luckily.

BTW, re Pete Takeda - in the book there's a photo of the ND peaks taken from Nanda Kot, by a Tsuyoshi Takeda. Wonder whether there's a connection.

As to the missing sensor (plutonium-powered), major efforts were made to trace it by both the Indians and the Americans, and after many, many search trips, regular tests of the water, soil and air over many years, and examination of different theories as to its loss/disappearance, they came to the conclusion that it must have sunk undamaged to the bottom of the glacier! Tests were done again in 1978 by a top panel of govt-appointed scientists, after a major storm in Parliament; the story had been leaked in the U.S. media, albeit with many inaccuracies.
The panel concluded that there was no danger (or rather, extremely low danger) to anyone becos it was plutonium (Pu-238, with 18% of Pu-239 mixed in, "as an impurity"), which is non-fissile (so no explosion possible), and "under most conditions.... (it is) less toxic than many other radioactive substances" !
As to water contamination, a flow of 5000 gallons a day is sufficient to dilute the plutonium to safe-drinking water levels, this required flow being far exceeded along the entire Ganga system.

I'd like to end by quoting the last two paras of the book -
"With regard to the generator, Kohli.....firmly believed that it had reached the glacier and melted its way to the rocky bottom. As they had found on Nanda Kot, the heat from the capsules would keep the ice at bay for at least six feet in all directions. As a result, there would be no pressure on the generator itself, allowing it to remain unmolested in this icy cathedral for several hundred years until the nuclear pellets died down." Yikes!!
"In a report he submitted three days later, Kohli stated that no further action was warranted. The scientists and intelligence officials agreed, as did the cabinet secretary. At long last the issue was declared closed."
Hmmm. Still, no one is let into the Sanctuary anymore, not even with special permission. Just in case.......


You shud definitely get hold of the book sometime!

nyraghu

Thanks, Dilliwala, for the informative posts. The Conboy and Kohli book does sound interesting. I'll try to get it soon. All that cloak and dagger stuff must make for a good read.

Yes, the environmental damage from mountaineering expeditions is documented by Bill Aitken [The Nanda Devi Affair], and also by Hugh Thompson [Nanda Devi] (which latter is a fairly superficial work and best avoided). It wasn't just garbage; Aitken writes [chapters 8 and 9] that expedition porters who weren't provided warm clothing by their clients burnt down juniper slopes. In another instance in 1981, a Czech expedition cut down birch trees near Dibrugheta to feed pack goats. Beyond all this was wildlife poaching by villagers, and "shooting for the pot" by Army expeditions.

Sounds a bit like a cover-up. I wonder what the professional affiliation of the aforementioned scientists was.

Regards,
Raghu.

Dilliwala

Oh, is that a whole book? Must be, I've only read his 'Trespasser to Nanda Devi Sanctuary' from 'Glorious Garhwal'. No wonder you have difficulty digesting him if you've read a whole book , I've usually taken him in small doses.

Oh, top notch. Chairman of BARC, etc. And earlier in '78 Raja Ramanna, MGK Menon and others.

nyraghu

I wish I had a similar instinct for moderation.

IMO, the report would've been more acceptable if it came from scientists whose affiliations are not so close to defence agencies. For instance, involving certain chemists from the university establishment in such an effort would have been a welcome move. (Even though universities in India are funded by the government, some of the good ones have a reputation for independence.) Beyond the report, it would've been good to discuss the issues openly in scientific fora. Of course, all this may've been done, and it's just that I am ignorant of that history. More reading to do :-)

Raghu.

Dilliwala

You're right, but given the sensitive nature of the whole thing - nuclear, China, India-US, hush-hush intelligence, I don't think that was going to happen. I wud say more about the tests, but I really think you shud read the book sometime, I don't want to spoil things by giving away the middle , seeing that I've already given away the ending.

aravjlt

Hi all,

Been doing some investigations on this topic myself after reading about this in Hugh Thomson's Nanda Devi book. It appears that some of the members of the original expedition that spilled the radioactive material have now come out in the open with it - here's an interview with someone who was on the expedition:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/...spymain26.html

Surprising how this appeared in a US news source, rather went uncovered in India - this could potentially be of harm to the entire ganges plains. Indian media seems more interested in covering inconsequential crimes and politicking, as has been the case for as long as I can remember.

There has also been a recent book on this subject - the alarming find by the author is that plutonium was found in the samples he collected from the area. Here's the link:

http://www.gripped.com/grippedemag/005/index.html

However, the efforts to remove the stuff in question might have succeeded as per this article.

http://www.indiadefence.com/himalayas.htm

If anyone of you has read the book by Pete Takeda on the subject, would be interested to know if he corroborates the fact that the radioactive cache has been found and removed?

Cheers,
A

aravjlt

All,

Somehow managed to miss reading some of the earlier posts in the thread that have the some of the same links as in the above post. Sorry about that.

Cheers,
A