She continues to defy all odds. Jaahnavi Sriperambuduru, the 13-year-old mountaineer from Hyderabad, set another record by becoming the youngest ever from India to scale Australia's Mt. Kosciuszko last week.
Having scaled Mt Killimanjaro and Mt Elbrus, Jaahnavi, a ninth standard student of Reqelford International School, this is part of her grand mission to scale the highest peaks across all Continents.
Interestingly, Jaahnavi was accompanied by her father and mentor Krishna Rao to also become the first daughter-father duo to scale the Australian mountain. To her delight, Jaahnavi has also achieved the rare feat of finishing off the Aussie 10 Challenge, which means reaching the 10 most difficult peaks - in all 21,788 metres.
Jaahnavi recalls that it was a very difficult and different challenge for her this time around. “Effectively there was no rest and it also meant scaling two peaks each on the first two days, four on third in 11 hours and another two peaks on the fourth day - all inside four days,” says the young champion girl. To plug the time gap, Jaahnavi used a mountain bike up to a certain point and then trekked her way to the destination. “Any expedition is dangerous as we have to brave strong winds too at 50 km per hour and here it also meant walking along the edge of the mountain,” explains the young girl chasing a dream in the world of adventure sports.
Like always, this indefatigable father-daughter combine has to raise funds from well wishers and hope the response will be good enough to take care of their next adventure in South America to scale Mt Aconcagua (6962 m). “Come what may, we are determined to script new chapters and make Jaahnavi's a household name by the sheer weight of her achievements,” signs off the proud father who is himself battling a serious health ailment.
