Youngest Indian woman to scale Mt. Everest - Krushnaa Patil

On 29th of September 2015, Miss Krushnaa Patil was invited to give a talk about her experience as the youngest Indian woman to scale Mt. Everest. Miss Patil initially wanted to become a dancer and never even knew of a profession like mountaineering existed. She however, knew that she was always interested in the mountains. She took one summer course on mountaineering and fell in love with it. She said “the mountains called to me.” She persuaded her summer course instructor to allow her on an expedition to Satopanth.

She claims that Satopanth was her teacher in mountain climbing and she enlightened us about the physical and mental struggles that she faced as an 18 year old climbing her first summit of the Satopanth. She was younger than everyone else on the expedition yet, she managed to gel with her team. She said that age was no barrier for her. Furthermore, it was physically exhausting because they had to carry 10kgs of equipment and 2kg shoes. The most difficult part was walking along a ridge that had a 1500 metre drop on either side. They had a 12 hour window to reach their destination with no snowfall but blasts of wind that created spin drifts like tiny tornados, while walking. So every time they walked, the snow shifted and they lost their balance.

After the successful climb of her first summit, her instructor encouraged her to climb Everest. She was part of the eco expedition and told us that the base camp was completely filthy with plastics and equipment from previous expeditions. Every new expedition team had to bring back all the metal waste they found as metal makes the snow melt faster, and they got money for that, proportionate to the weight. Miss Patil’s team got down 8 tonnes of garbage.

The most inspirational part of her talk was not about the mountaineering aspect but rather about what she took away from her experience. She said that the expedition changed her outlook of mankind’s relationship with nature. On the expedition, she had an experience of building houses out of plastic. They stuffed plastic bottles with the waste and fixed those bottles between the bricks. These acted as an insulator. One room used up tonnes of waste.

In the end, she spoke about her vision: to climb the tallest peaks of every continent and to build a civilisation inclusive of nature. She wants to incorporate the architecture she learnt in the mountains, into the cities where infrastructure is the highest grossing industry.

Miss Patil was a very inspiring speaker and we were honoured to listen to her regale her tales of the mountains and spread her vision amongst us students.