Kolkata climber makes it to the Guinness Book of World Record

KOLKATA: Kolkata climber Satyarup Siddhanta made it to the Guinness Book of World Records on Tuesday after the world record chronicler recognised him as the youngest person to climb seven summits and seven volcanic summits. The news came at a time when Siddhanta is on an expedition to North Pole. He will complete explorers' grand slam after the North Pole feat.

Guinness on Tuesday night flashed on its official page "The youngest person to climb the Seven Summits and the Seven Volcanic Summits is Satyarup Siddhanta, who was 35 years and 261 days old when he completed the feat by reaching the summit of Mt Sidley in Antarctica, on 15 January 2019." The record was earlier held by the Australian climber Daniel Bull, who was 36 years when he achieved the feat.



"I feel proud as an Indian to have achieved this. Although I climbed Mount Sidley on Jan 16, it took some time to go through several sets of corroboration before Guinness officially announced it," Siddhanta said as he spoke over phone from Longyearbyen in Norway. The IT professional, who has been on an expedition to North Pole, is likely to go for the final push on April 12.

"Expedition to the North pole is a combination of skiing and walking on drifting ice. In fact, the starting point for the expedition depends on the ice and prevailing ice drift condition," said Dipanjan Das, a friend of Satyarup. The critical area to reach the top of the globe starts during the last leg of the journey where the adventurers have to struggle with pockets of very soft ice. "It might befool every judgment of ice an adventurer has faced earlier as the hard-looking ice may actually turn out to be very soft and create a death trap," said Das. Tiredness from walking on the ice for days leave the trekkers with false visions and weakness and they may collapse enroute.