Friendship Peak Expedition – 60 Hours of Snow, Weather and a Whole Lot of Grit

Friendship Peak Expedition – 60 Hours of Snow, Weather and a Whole Lot of Grit

Some treks are remembered for the summit. Others are remembered for everything that happens before and after it. Our Friendship Peak expedition was definitely the latter.

After organising two community DIY treks to Gulabi Kantha & Bhrigu Lake, we wanted to take things a little further. Friendship Peak, at 5,289 metres, was our first step into technical mountaineering. This wasn't a commercial trek. We worked with a local mountaineering team from Manali for the technical sections, while everyone paid their own share of the actual expedition costs.

What followed was six days of changing plans, bad weather, snow, early mornings, heavy backpacks and, eventually, a summit. More importantly, the team completed the Dhundi-to-Dhundi section in about 60 hours.

Day 1 – Manali

16th September

We reached Manali around 9 AM and headed to Ara Homestay in Burwa, which was to be our base before the expedition. Burwa seems to have its own little trekking and running community, and the homestay was a comfortable place to get the team together. The dorms and rooms worked well for a group, although the desserts at the café may have been the real highlight!

Ara Homestay, Burwa - Harish - 997150078

The afternoon was spent in briefing, checking equipment and repacking our backpacks for the early start. Keeping the packs organised was already becoming a small challenge.

Day 2 – Manali to Sissu & Acclimatization

17th September

The original plan was to move towards Lady Leg, but the weather had other ideas. It rained almost non-stop, so we spent much of the day waiting for a weather window. Chess and card games became our temporary expedition activities.

After a lot of back and forth, we decided to change the plan. Instead of losing an entire day waiting at lower altitude, we drove to Sissu and hiked towards the Ghepan Lake trail at around 3,400 metres. It was a short acclimatization hike, but it meant we could still gain some altitude while keeping the team moving.

We returned, had an early dinner and crashed in Sissu. The next morning would be an early one.

Distance covered: ~ 4 km | Altitude: 3,100 m to 3,400 m

Day 3 – Dhundi to Lady Leg 

18th September

Start Time of the Trek: 8 AM

Distance: ~7 km

Elevation Gain: ~1000 m 

We loaded the cars by 7 AM and reached Dhundi at around 7:30 AM, at roughly 2,800 metres. After a quick warm-up and a few pre-trek photographs, we started walking around 8 AM.

Our guide caught up with us near the tree point, which was also the last reliable network point.

The trail took us through Lohali and past several campsites used by teams heading towards Beas Kund. The climb to Lady Leg, around 3,800 metres, was fairly quick and took us roughly an hour and a half. We reached camp around 12:30 PM.

Instead of settling in immediately, we went higher for another acclimatization hike towards the Beas Kund viewpoint, reaching approximately 3,900 metres. We returned to hot dal chawal, spent some time in the sun and then got ready for our technical training session.

By 5 PM, crampons, snow boots and ice axes were out. We were shown how to use the equipment and what to expect higher up. After dinner, everyone was in bed early.

Distance covered: ~ 7 km | Altitude: ~ 2,800 m to 3,800 m

Day 4 – Lady Leg to Summit Camp | 19 September

Breakfast was followed by another round of repacking. This time, the bags had technical equipment, sleeping bags, packed lunch and everything required for a night at Summit Camp, around 4,300 metres.

We started around 10 AM. Every time we crossed a small plateau, it looked like the campsite was just ahead. It wasn't. Eventually, around 12:30 PM, we reached Summit Camp.

The afternoon was spent acclimatizing and fetching water. The water available at camp was muddy, and we ended up drinking some of it after basic settling. One lesson from the day: carry a personal water filter or a filter soft flask on such expeditions.

Our guide also had to rush back down to assist with a rescue involving someone from another team who had developed symptoms of altitude sickness. It was a reminder that the mountain doesn't really care about anyone's itinerary.

Dinner was at 5 PM. We packed our PAKEasy foldable day packs for the summit push and tried to get some sleep by 6 PM.

Distance covered: ~2.5 km | Altitude: 3,800 m to 4,300 m

Day 5 – Summit Day | 20 September

At midnight, we started getting ready. Snow boots, warm layers, gloves, headlamps — everything came out. Breakfast and some quick snacks followed around 12:30 AM.

One of our teammates, Gaurav, was already showing symptoms of AMS and had vomited. He made the sensible decision not to attempt the summit. It wasn't an easy decision, but on a mountain, turning around at the right time is part of the expedition.

We began the summit push around 1 AM.

The first few hours were spent climbing through darkness, with only headlamps lighting up the trail. Around 3:30 AM, we reached the Col and then traversed towards the crampon section. Vikram also struggled with vomiting during the traverse but recovered and continued.

Putting on crampons in deep snow without anywhere proper to sit was an adventure in itself. Once the sky began to open up, we got our first proper views of Hanuman Tibba.

Then came the rope sections.

This was where the climb became physically and mentally demanding. We used the fixed ropes and self-anchors for support, often taking two steps forward and sliding one back. One rope section felt manageable. The next, where even our guide was wearing crampons, made it very clear that the difficult part had arrived.

There were sections where we had to pull ourselves up using the ropes. Slowly, one move at a time, we climbed higher.

At around 7:30 AM, we reached the summit of Friendship Peak.

The summit itself was special, but what stayed with me was everything that had gone into reaching it — the weather delays, the training, the tired legs, the early mornings and the team pushing through together.

We started descending around 8:15 AM. The descent through the snow was much faster, and it was almost amusing to realise what we had climbed through in complete darkness only a few hours earlier.

We reached Summit Camp around noon, removed our painfully heavy snow boots, took a short power nap and repacked. By around 1:30–2 PM, we were heading back towards Lady Leg.

We reached Lady Leg around 3 PM, had some much-needed kadhi chawal. The thought of sleeping in a warm room in Manali rather than getting into a sleeping bag – or as Shubham described it, a "body bag" – was enough motivation and a group decision was made to push all the way down to Dhundi.

We finally reached Dhundi at around 8 PM. After roughly 60 hours of starting from Dhundi, climbing to the summit of Friendship peak and returning, the only appropriate celebration was a biryani party.

Distance covered: ~ 15 km | Altitude: 4,300 m → 5,200 m → 2,800 m

GPX file - Community Expedition to Friendship Peak

Day 6 – Back to Reality | 21 September

After three days of a pretty intense push, Day 6 was deliberately slow. We slept in, made calls, replied to messages and emails, played some chess and spent time together over lunch and a few drinks.

By evening, it was time to get back to reality. We boarded the bus to Delhi around 7:30 PM.

The Importance of the Team

One thing that stood out throughout this expedition was the importance of the team. Before the expedition, we had screened participants for previous trekking experience and fitness. We used a 10 km run in around 70 minutes as one of the fitness benchmarks.

That preparation mattered. The itinerary was short, the altitude gain was significant and there wasn't much time to recover between stages. Everyone had to contribute, look out for each other and make sensible decisions when things got difficult.

And perhaps that combination of preparation, fitness and teamwork is what helped us make the Dhundi-to-Dhundi push in about 60 hours.

Gear Checklist

A Few Things We Learnt

  • Carry a foldable mat for a good night’s sleep
  • Carry a personal water filter or filter soft flask. Clean-looking mountain water isn't always actually clean.
  • A pulse oximeter and a basic medical kit can be useful at altitude
  • Don't self-medicate to push through symptoms of altitude sickness. Medication can sometimes mask symptoms, which can make it harder to recognise when someone genuinely needs to descend.

More Than Just a Summit

Friendship Peak was our first community technical expedition. It was about adapting when the weather changed, making decisions as a group, learning technical skills, dealing with exhaustion and knowing when to push and when not to.

Not everyone who started the summit push reached the top — and that's okay. The mountain always comes first.

We came back with tired legs, a lot of stories and a much better understanding of what it takes to move from trekking towards mountaineering.

And, of course, a few more people to share the next adventure with!

— Santosh Kardak
Tagged: adventure blog community expedition expedition explore fitness friendship peak Hiking himachal Himalayas Mountains nature snow trek Trekking tripole winter trek
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