Climber unfurls Indian tricolour on Europe’s peak
BHAWNA DEHARIYA IS ON HER ‘SEVEN SUMMITS QUEST’
AN INDIAN mountaineer on Monday (15) unfurled the country’s national flag on Mount Elbrus, the highest peak in Europe, to mark the south Asian nation’s 76th Independence Day.
Bhawna Dehariya, 30, from the hamlet of Tamia in the Chhindwara district of the Madhya Pradesh state, timed her expedition to celebrate ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ (75th anniversary of independence) with the national tricolour.
Having conquered Mount Everest in the past, the mountaineer decided to take on the challenge of scaling the 5,642-metre peak in Europe located on the Russia-Georgia border.
“The weather near the top of the mountain was extremely cold, with winds blowing up to 35km/h and visibility subsided with temperatures down to minus 25 degrees Celsius,” Dehariya said in a message from the peak. It made it difficult for us to even take a rest for a few minutes... However, post-pregnancy, I was mentally prepared for the summit. I geared myself up for this day and practised a lot in the mountains of Tamia. Thus, this made me successfully reach the top of Mount Elbrus before record time,” Dehariya, who is mum to a 15-month-old daughter, said.
Sharing the experiences from her expedition with a team of mountaineers, Dehariya recalled how on August 10, they travelled from Moscow to Mineralny Vody, from where they began their climb to Mount Elbrus.
“The next day was extremely strenuous due to bad weather and I had a blood clot from my nose while undergoing high altitude acclimatisation during the rotation for climatic adaptation at a height of 2,346 metres,” Dehariya said.
“We established a base camp with the group on August 12 at a height of 3,888 metres, where we had rotation for the following two days up to a height of 4,500 metres. Notably, this rotation is considered to be essential for protecting the body from acute mountain sickness and fluctuations in mountain air pressure,” she said.
On August 13 midnight, the team set off for the peak and arrived in the early hours of August 15. “I hoisted the tricolour with grandeur at the peak of Mount Elbrus West, which is 5,642 metres high above the sea level,” said the mountaineer. Dehariya said the expedition, a collaboration of the Madhya Pradesh Tourism Board and the State Bank of India, has been one of the “most difficult, strenuous and physically exhausting”.
She previously established herself as one of the first women from Madhya Pradesh to scale the summit of Mount Everest on May 22, 2019 and went on to climb Mount Kosciuszko in Australia in the same year.
She has also scaled Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro, the continent’s highest peak and has had the opportunity to celebrate Diwali and Holi at some of the highest peaks.
Her latest expedition was particularly tough as she had to leave behind her daughter. However, the mountaineer is determined to complete peaks of all seven continents as part of her “Seven Summits Quest” and unfurl the tricolour on all of the highest peaks she scales.