“It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.” — Edmund Hillary.
For S. Eswaraiah and Sandhya Bai, who had scaled Mt. Everest, the journey to conquer the world’s highest mountain peak is a compelling story of grit and determination.
District Collector Kona Sasidhar felicitated the two achievers at the weekly grievance redress programme here on Monday.
Responding to the concerns raised by the two students, Mr. Sasidhar said the two tribal hamlets they hailed from would be developed into model ones and that a special team would visit the hamlets to ascertain their problems.
They were part of a nine-member team from social welfare and tribal welfare residential schools that scaled the summit in May 2017. Training for the members of the group had commenced in October 2016. Over the next six months, they were imparted trained by experts in mountaineering at Darjeeling and Ladakh.
They started the trek to Mt. Everest from the Chinese region in the first week of April, and finally reached the peak during May 16 to 22.
IAS aspirant
Eswaraiah is from Davupalli thanda of Veldurthy mandal near Macherla. He has no proper house and still spends sleepless nights whenever it rains as water leaks from the thatched dwelling in which he resides. A student of ST Junior College at Sunnipenta in Kurnool district, he aims to become an IAS officer.
Sandhya Bai, a native of Veldurthy mandal, was studying in the Tribal Welfare Residential College at Nagarjuna Sagar when the college received an e-mail seeking aspirants to scale the Mt Everest. Sandhya said she was game for it and had been trained in mountaineering by experts.
During the course of the most challenging trek, they had endured the gusty winds blowing at 200 kmph and freezing temperature while trekking up carrying a load of 25 kg on their shoulders.
‘Death zone’
The trek usually began at night as it would be easier for the trekkers to get a firm grip on the snow. Recollecting a chilling sense of morbidity when she passed the “death zone,” Sandhya Bai, now a student of Andhra Loyola College in Vijayawada, said: “I saw dead bodies lying all around as we passed the death zone. I even saw one of my seniors slipping to death from close quarters. But I was determined to scale the summit.”