After creating a world record at the age of nine by becoming the youngest in the world to scale Mt Stok Kangri at 20,187 feet last year, Kaamya Karthikeyan has now set her eyes on Mt Elbrus. This is Europe’s highest mountain at 18,510 feet and the 10th most important peak in the world.
Kaamya will embark on her next expedition from Russia on Friday. “I am all excited and geared up for the summit. This will be extra special for me as both my parents are accompanying me this time and also because I will be doing a ski descent from the peak. That’s something I haven’t attempted earlier,” says the 10-year-old.
Mission SAHAS
Her summit will begin from a small town in Russia called Mineralyne Vody. “The climb starts from June 9 and we plan to scale the peak by June 15 before heading back by June 18,” says Kaamya’s father Commander S Karthikeyan, a naval officer. With this expedition, Kaamya has inched closer to her mammoth project — ‘SAHAS’ — to scale the highest mountains in each of the continents and ski to the South and North Poles in her attempt to become the world’s youngest to accomplish the extreme feat termed ‘Explorers Grand Slam’. Captain MS Kohli, the legendary mountaineer of the Indian Navy who skippered the first successful Indian Everest expedition in 1965, flagged off her endeavour on June 4 from Delhi.
While the young mountaineer had previously climbed greater heights like Mt Kilimanjaro — the highest mountain of Africa in October last year — as part of her project ‘SAHAS’ and also reached the Everest Base Camp in Nepal, the upcoming expedition to Mt Elbrus holds a special challenge for her. “What would make the trek particularly challenging are the severe climate conditions and unpredictability of weather. Temperatures are expected to be anywhere between -5 and -20 degree Celsius and add to that the wind chill factor. Mt Elbrus is infamous for sudden weather changes as well,” says Karthikeyan. Also, Kaamya is undertaking the expedition when it is not quite a favourable trek period since she wanted to do the ski descent. As part of the expedition, she will be hiring a special equipment called Alpine touring ski boots from Russia.
Challenges ahead
But Kaamya is confident of battling all the challenges to add another feather to her cap. “I have been cycling and trekking in preparation for the expedition,” she says.
From cycling uphill at Dolphin Hills twice a day and waking up at 3 am for long treks to going for walks in dark roads with head lamps to get the feel of what it would be on the final day of the summit, Kaamya’s training period had been intense. Earlier this year in January, she completed her advanced skiing course from the Indian Institute of Skiing and Mountaineering in Gulmarg. A student of Class VI of Navy Children’s School in Visakhapatnam, Kaamya has been able to juggle with ease her academics and adventure sports pursuits.
Also an accomplished swimmer, marathon runner, Bharatnatyam dancer and Carnatic singer, Kaamya is now seeking to attend institutionalised mountaineering course this year which will help her scale greater heights.
She is scheduled to return to India on June 21, but has already charted out her plan for the next climb — Mt Kosciuszko in Australia later this year.
