Baljeet Kaur 1st Indian to scale 4 8,000-metre summits in 25 days

CHANDIGARH: Baljeet Kaur on Sunday became the first Indian mountaineer to scale four 8,000-meter peaks back-to-back in less than a month when she summitted Mount Lhotse, the fourth highest mountain in the world at 8,516 meters.
Completing the Everest-Lhotse traverse, Kaur reached the top of Lhotse on Sunday morning at 05.50 local time. A day earlier, she had scaled Mount Everest on Saturday at 4.30am local time.
"Kaur scaled Lhotse with her guide Mingma Sherpa and is expected to be back at the base camp by Monday morning," said Pasang Sherpa, the director of Peak Promotion, a Kathmandu-based mountaineering agency.
Mount Lhotse is the fourth 8,000-meter peak Kaur, 27, has scaled within 25 days during the ongoing climbing season in Nepal.
Last month on April 28, Kaur, had scaled Mount Annapurna, the 10th highest mountain in the world at 8,091 meters and on May 12 she summitted Mount Kanchenjunga, the third highest mountain at 8,586 meters.
Hailing from Solan in Himachal Pradesh, Kaur had also climbed Mount Dhaulagiri (8,167 meters), the seventh highest mountain in the world, last year, and is the first Indian woman along with Gunbala Sharma from Rajasthan to scale Mount Pumori (7,161 meters) in 2021. By scaling Lhotse, Kaur has also equalled the record of scaling five eight-thousanders set by Priyanka Mohite, a mountaineer from Maharashtra. Mohite, 30, had become the first Indian woman this year on May 2, when she had summited Mount Kanchenjunga, her fifth 8,000-meter peak.
Congratulating Kaur, Indian Mountaineering Foundation (IMF) president Harshwanti Bisht said her achievement would boost women mountaineering in India.
"Such a feat is highly positive for the women mountaineering in India. More and more Indian women climbers are breaking and setting new records, which in turn are encouraging more talent to come forward," said Bisht.