The temperature was sub-zero. The two young mountaineers from Prakasam district, Ch. Anand Babu and G. Sivaprasad, selected the Machame route to summit 5,895-metre Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, the highest peak in the African continent.
While 25-year-old Anand Babu hails from Yeddanapudi village, 22-year-old Sivaprasad comes from K. Bitragunta village.
They started from the Barranco camp after acclimatising themselves with the hostile climatic conditions. Commencing their trek just after midnight on September 12, the duo did it, overcoming sickness associated with high altitude.
“We did not stop in between. We proceeded slowly, maintaining a uniform rate of ascent all through. We reached the Uhuru peak at 8.20 a.m. on September 13,” said the mountaineers on their return to Ongole, proudly showing the certificates issued by the Kilimanjaro National Park authorities.
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On who was their inspiration, they had no second thoughts in saying it was was Malli Mastan Babu, India’s fastest mountaineer.
“We survived on liquid food and some chocolates during the trek,” they said.
“While the ascent took about 8 hours, we completed the descent in about three hours, though it was more physically challenging,” they recalled.
The Society for Training and Employment (STEP) here made the incredible summit possible. We had been selected from among hundreds of aspirants, said the young mountaineers, who were motivated by B. Ravi, STEP CEO.
They had rigorous training first in the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, Darjeeling, and then at Jawahar Institute of Mountaineering and Winter Sports at Pahalgam. They also had training at the Rock Climbing School run by ace mountaineer B. Shekhar Babu at Bhongir in Telangana.
Anand Babu and Sivaprasad now look for sponsors to mount he highest peaks in six other continents. “If we get sponsors, we would attempt scaling Mt. Elbrus in Europe and Kosciusko in Australia,” said the duo, keen on rewriting the record set by Mastan Babu. The ace mountaineer had etched his name in the record books by scaling the highest peaks in the seven continents in just 172 days before perishing in the Andes. Anand Babu and Sivaprasad plan to scale Mt. Everest in 2019 summer.