Meet Thinlas Chorol: Mountaineer and more

Thinlas Chorol from Ladakh, India is simply remarkable by any measure. She is the most famous female guide in the Himalayas, the only woman from India to ever complete the 135-mile Himalayan foot race, and the most powerful force in northern Asia pushing social justice for woman as founder and president of Ladakhi Women’s Welfare Network…. and much more.

Chorol is here as a guest of Our Ladakhi Sisters charity from Fort Fairfield and will speak at the Camden Public Library on Wednesday, Feb. 8, at noon.

Chorol grew up in small Himalayan village of Ladakh named Takmachik. Her mother died when she was a baby and so she spent her childhood as a shepherd’s daughter tending flocks in the high meadows fearing something might happen to her father if he went alone. The incredible mountains of Ladakh are where she felt at home and so as she grew she decided she would like to be a trekking guide. However, it was a male dominated business and nobody would hire a woman and so she took her destiny into her own hands.

She traveled to attend Nehru Institute of Mountaineering and then the National Outdoor Leadership School where she became a credentialed guide. She returned to Ladakh in 2009 and opened an all women trekking company called Ladakhi Women Travel Company in the male dominated arena and has been wildly successful. She now employs about 30 women and is ever expanding opportunities for women as she can train them. She arranges homestays for trekkers in remote villages to help impoverished women generate income.

Read the full story here.