Jamshedpur, Jul 4: India's oldest woman mountaineer to conquer Mt. Everest Premlata Agarwal will embark on scaling Mt. Elbrus (18,510 ft) in Europe in August followed by Carstensz Pyramid (16,050 ft) in Oceania in October.
Undeterred by her unsuccessful attempt to climb Mt. McKinley, renamed as Mt. Denali, in North America due to rough weather condition in April-May last year, Agarwal is all geared up for the expedition.
A mother of two grown-up daughters, the feisty mountaineer from Jharkhand, who conquered the Mt. Everest last year, said she planned to set out for the expedition in early August.
Agarwal had earlier scaled two other peaks Mt. Kilimanjaro (19,341ft) in Africa and Mt Aconcagua (22,960 ft) in Mendoza, Argentina.
Recalling her pain at not being able to clear Mt. Denali (20,320 ft), she said she was just 700 feet away, a roughly 65-70 minute climbing, from the summit when suddenly the weather turned bad as the temperature plummeted to minus 40 degrees Celsius accompanied by strong wind.
“We had decided to return to the camp and restart for the onward journey next day as the distance could have been covered in just over an hour's time, but I was not allowed to scale up alone,” said Agarwal, who was the lone woman mountaineer in the expedition.
Unfortunately, the weather condition deteriorated further and the weather report for the next ten days was not friendly either, she said regretting that she had no option but to leave the expedition incomplete.
“It was so near and yet so far,” Agarwal rued, but said she was determined to completed the unfinished job next year.
