A college student of Uttarakhand, Sucheta Sati has accomplished a ride to the Khardung la pass in the high altitude region of ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir on a motorcycle.
Hailing from Joshimath in Chamoli district, Sucheta is presently a B Com third year student at the DAV (PG) College in Dehradun. She has been interested in adventurous activities since her childhood. She had undertaken her first trek at the age of eight years when due to the motor road being blocked at Hanumanchatti, she covered a five kilometre trek through the jungle using only the light from a mobile phone to reach her destination at midnightafter commencing the trek at 7 PM. This experience gave her a taste for adventure, say her parents Mahesh Chandra Sati and Reena Sati. Since then, she undertook treks to various places including the Valley of Flowers, lokpal/Hemkund, Changbang peak base camp (Nanda Devi biosphere reserve), Tungnath, Chandrashila and Devariatal among other treks with trekkers from India and abroad. She had also learnt to ride a motorcycle at the age of 14 years but did not ride it as she was not eligible for a driving license. On reaching the age of 18 years and securing a license she joined a group of bikers. Before riding to ladakh, she had undertaken journeys on her motorcycle to Auli, Harshil, Dharmshala and other routes.
She began her latest ride from Dehradun on June 10 and covered more than 3000 kilometres in the trip which took her to Khardung la pass and back to Dehradun. She rode a 150 CC bike to the pass situated at an altitude of 18,360 feet above sea level.
In the future, she also plans to ride from Kashmir to Kanyakumari apart from which she also plans to open a travel agency and a website to raise awareness especially among the youth about adventure activities. With the help of her father, Sucheta also plans to publish Uttarakhand Travel Journal focusing on the history, geography, trekking routes and mountaineering in Uttarakhand.