Zoological Park and Mountaineering Institute

Visiting zoo has never been my cup of tea. But today, we were going to visit the Himalayan Zoological Park, supposedly one of India’s better zoos. I was hoping that I could at least see the snow leopard, but no, we did not manage to.

The park was established in 1958 to study, conserve and preserve Himalayan fauna. Today, it houses, among many others, the Siberian tigers, black bears, red pandas, snow leopards, Tibetan wolves, barking deer, yaks, and etc.

Adjacent to the park is the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute. Unlike the zoo, the institute was something which I looked forward to.

The institute was founded in 1954 to commemorate history’s first successful conquest of Mt Everest in 1953 by ‘Darjeeling son’, Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hilary.

The Everest Museum and Mountaineering Museum display photos of the past and present mountaineers, equipments and gears used by the mountaineers in the olden days, accounts of the ‘history of attempts on the world’s highest peak’, biographies and many other information related to Everest and mountaineering.

The institute conducts courses on: climbing, jungle survival and canoeing. It has also trained some of India’s leading mountaineers.

On the hilltop nearby where Tenzing Norgay was cremated, stand the statue of the man himself.

It started to rain as our visit to the park and the institute was coming to an end. We had to run for shelter.

Entrance to the zoological park

Black bear

Barking deer

Yak

Entrance to the Mountaineering Institute



The mountaineers of the past

Statute of Sherpa Tenzing Norgay