Satyarup becomes 1st civilian Bengali to scale 7 Summits

Kolkata: Pushing aside childhood fears of asthma attacks returning to haunt him, 34-year-old Satyarup Siddhanta nurtured only dreams of scaling the Seven Summits that left him breathless in his sleep.

On Saturday, he became the first civilian Bengali from the state to have successfully scaled the Seven Summits. The mountaineer reached the peak of Mt Vinson Massif (4,892m), the highest mountain of Antarctica at around 5.30 am. "What an achievement! Few of us were closely tracking his movements since the last couple of hours. I got the news through his Facebook post. However, I was convinced only when I received his official communication... It was around 10 am when he called me up through his satellite phone and informed me of the feat. I have no words to express my joy and excitement," Satyarup's mother Gayatri Siddhanta said.

It is learnt that Siddhanta had set out on his expedition on November 30. He started from Mumbai Airport and then reached Amsterdam from where he reached Chile. There he met his other four fellow expeditioners and on December 7 he started his journey for Vinson Massif. It was a daunting task for him and his mates to adjust with the hostile climatic conditions there. Temperature was minus 50 degree Celsius keeping its reputation of being one of the remotest and coldest mountains on earth.

He would be reaching the base camp on Sunday and would then ski the last degree to South Pole from 89 degree south to 90 degree south. The incredible and adventurous journey is 60 nautical miles in length. Following this, he will return back to Chile to climb the highest active volcano in the world, Mt Ojos Del Salado (6,893m) which is also the highest mountain in Chile. The expedition will end on January 20.

The expedition involved a sum of Rs 66 lakh. Some private companies came to his help after seeing his post on Facebook page about his financial needs for the expedition. He could manage only Rs 30 lakh from private companies and the rest of the amount was arranged through the loans he took from the bank.

Siddhanta had successfully scaled the Mt Everest in June 2016. The other difficult peaks that he had climbed successfully includes Mt Kilimanjaro, Mt. Elbrus, Mt. Aconcagua in Argentina, Mt. Denali in Alaska, Mt. Monc Blanc in France to name a few.

The first 7 summiteer from India, Malli Mastan Babu in 2015 died of hypothermia at Tres Cruces Sur, on the Chile-Argentina border when a storm came.