Expedition Plan

The UN has warned that 500,000 people could die in Kashmir this winter because of cold and starvation.

A team of world-class mountaineers sponsored by The North Face has teamed up with Kashmiri-American members of Kashmir Earthquake Relief to mount a joint North Face/KER Relief Expedition to help victims of the earthquake in Kashmir.

While 3 tons of collected gear is being prepared for airlift in the USA by KER, a special team will be heading out on November 27 on an emergency relief expedition.

The North Face and KER will launch a joint expedition to assist some of the most at-risk communities in the quake-hit areas of Kashmir. Most villages will have to be reached by foot, some areas require traversing over an 11,500 ft snowbound Himalayan mountain pass.

The focus of the expedition will be the quake-hit areas of India-administered Kashmir. We have a plan to provide life-saving relief aid – shelter, food, and medical assistance - in the Uri and Karnah Valleys there, where some 250,000 people – men, women, children, and the elderly - are homeless. This population in these areas is at-risk for death due to homelessness and winter. Some areas can only be reached by traversing over an 11,000 foot Himalayan Mountain pass. We have to get relief aid to these people before the road becomes cut-off after the major snow comes. We are literally racing against time as the heavy snows, which are typically 6 to 7 feet, can come at any time.

Our goal is to reach victims of the earthquake in Kashmir to help prevent a second wave of deaths which could kill many more times the number of people than the October 8th quake did.

North Face/K.E.R. Relief Expedition will seek to achieve the following and more:

• Deploy 12 Norwegian Octimax tents in at-risk areas and launch expanded relief programs from those points.

• Establish 10-12 new Community Shelter/Relief Camps in the remote and high altitude areas of Uri and Karnah.

• Provide support to the areas in Uri where K.E.R. has been already supporting relief efforts since the quake hit.

• Build as many emergency tin shelters as possible for families and communities before winter comes.

• Deliver more than 3 tons of tents, sleeping bags, and other items that were collected during the recent North Face/K.E.R. nationwide Gear Drop.

• Assess avalanche risk to camps, provide first aid, and evacuate the seriously injured.

• Survey the extent of damage and assess long-term needs and rehabilitation program ideas.

Daily Dispatches

For daily reports and photos from the field, please visit the KER Daily Dispatches site.

You can also follow the expedition from The North Face website.

Usmaan Raheem Ahmad, from KER, will be co-leading the expedition

He will be joined by Talal Ansari, also from KER



Willie Benegas will be co-leading the expedition with a team of mountaineers accompanying him. Benegas, is a member of The North Face athlete team for 7 years.



He will be joined by colleagues Renan Ozturk, Cedar Wright and Patrick Kenny.



Adventure photographer, Ace Kvale, will also be joining the North Face/KER Relief Expedition.

Expedition Maps