The snow is deep, visibility is poor, and somewhere beneath the white expanse could be a soldier buried for hours.

A rescue team moves carefully through the mountains, carrying probes, shovels, beacons and specialised equipment. Every step is deliberate, every minute matters. At high altitude, even reaching the site can be a mission.

When a distress call comes, the team has just five minutes to mobilise.

This is the world of Tiranga Mountain Rescue (TMR), India’s first professional mountain and avalanche rescue organisation. For the past decade, its teams have worked across some of the country’s harshest terrain, often alongside the Indian Army and disaster response agencies.

Since its founding in 2016, TMR has deployed 16 specialised teams across avalanche-prone regions from Kashmir to Arunachal Pradesh. Comprising expert mountaineers, former High Altitude Warfare School instructors, ex-servicemen and civilian rescue professionals, they provide round-the-clock support in extreme weather and high-altitude conditions.

So far, TMR’s work has helped save approximately 400 soldiers. But the roots of that mission lie in a rescue of a very different kind — one that began when its founder, Hemant Sachdev, found himself stranded on a mountain and in need of help. 

A fall on Everest changed everything

Hemant Sachdev had always been drawn to the outdoors.

Long before becoming an entrepreneur, he was a climber and hiker. He spent his younger years exploring mountains and went on several expeditions across the Himalayas.

In 2013, he was climbing Everest with three friends. Unlike the large teams that typically attempt the mountain, theirs was a small group.

While crossing the infamous Khumbu Icefall, Hemant encountered a moment that could easily have ended differently.

He was crossing a difficult section over a large crevasse, using two ropes for balance. Suddenly, the rope he was holding snapped.

He fell, but fortunately, he was still secured to the second rope. He found himself dangling over the crevasse, wondering how long it would hold under his weight and backpack.

Then his friend, a professional rescuer, turned back, reached him and pulled him out. There was little time to process what had happened. On Everest, there is no luxury of stopping to think about what could have gone wrong; you steady yourself and keep moving.

Hemant did exactly that.

A week later, on 19 May, he stood on the summit with his friends. They had reached early, and for nearly half an hour, the four of them were alone at the top.

After two months of climbing, the stillness finally gave him a moment to reflect. His mind went back to the crevasse, the broken rope and the friend who had known exactly what to do when everything went wrong.

“If you don't have a great structure or a good sense of very skilled people to provide you safety, to ensure your safety, then you can never really achieve great heights,” he recalls.

He did not know it then, but that thought would eventually take him beyond climbing mountains. Three years later, it would become the foundation for Tiranga Mountain Rescue. 

The question that led to Tiranga Mountain Rescue

In January 2016, Hemant was in Delhi when news of a devastating avalanche in Siachen broke.

Ten soldiers had been buried for five days. When they were finally found, nine had died. One was barely alive........

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