“We plan the expedition after looking at the group that’s taking shape,” said Arvin Singh Uzunov-Dang (outgoing Head of Triveni at MUWCI), when asked about the Ladakh expedition he undertook with eight UWC students in July of this year. “And with this group, we felt like we could be ambitious.”
Breaking all previous records, this group comprising of Bella (Denmark), Sigrid (Norway), Tom (UK), Aldo (Mexico), Ryoji (Japan), and Jasmin (Finland), led by outgoing second years Clara (Italy & Denmark) and Phoebe (Canada) summited three peaks in Ladakh of 6280m, 6250m, 6150m over 18 days.
Phoebe (Canada, Class of ’18) says, of this immensely galvanizing achievement, “The pure bliss of finally, finally summiting. We live so much of our lives in the middle, operating on muscle memory, the comfort of routine protecting us against cutting ourselves on our rough edges that we never find out who we are when standing on the brink of our emotional cliff. But that is what climbing mountains does for us; it reveals to us that we are capable of much greater feats than we ever could have imagined, leaving us with an insatiable desire to do it again, and again and again. One of the hikers described the parallel between being tied together by a rope during an ascent and connected through a bond that cannot be broken. This ties into an essential aspect of outdoor education: the development of compassion towards ourselves and those who surround us.”
“At that altitude, every cell of your body is crying out for you to behave in a selfish manner. To not self-regulate, to not control your temper. And that’s when a higher consciousness is shaped,” concludes Arvin.
Do take a look at these absolutely incredible pictures Arvin captured during the expedition!
