Wandering high into the mountains…

Mysuru: When teenagers are engaged in electronic gadgets and applications like WhatsApp, Facebook etc, here is a thirteen-year-old girl Riya Solanki (pursuing Eighth Grade in Manasarowar Pushkarini Vidyashrama) who wanders high into the mountains.

It all started at the age of 8, when she went on a summit at Mt. Surya in 2013 and since then she has not looked back and has been conquering mountains. She has been to many summits such as Mt.Saurkundi Pass (2014), Mt. Rumtu (2015), Mt. Kedarkanta (2016) and Mt. Tundda Bhuja (2017).

This time she dared to go to the Everest Base camp at a height of 17500 feet in Himalayas (Nepal). Riya Solanki says, “It was haunting her since the past two years when she used to follow a TV Series ‘Everest’ on Star Plus, but after seeing the movie ‘Everest’ she made up her mind that she should at least go to the Everest base camp and aspire further”.

A team of nine people from the States of Karnataka, Kerala and Telangana left for Kathmandu on Oct.14, and were later joined by seventeen people from Maharashtra and Delhi on Oct.15. On Oct.16, an aircraft carried them to Lukla Airport, which is one of the most vulnerable and dangerous airports in the world. On Oct.17, the team went for an acclimatisation walk and later treated themselves to a local cuisine made by Sidar family at Lukla village.

On Oct. 18, they set forth for the destination Everest Base Camp; they walked around 9 kms to reach Phadaking, then trekked about 8 kms to Namache Bazar. She adds that though it was a festive time at home, she went to see the world outside and it was a fantabulous experience in Nepal. They celebrated “Tihar” which is meant as Deepavali at Namache Bazaar with the Iron Man Milind Soman and crew. On Oct. 22, they trekked to Dingaboche, which is at a distance of 10kms from Debuche and stayed for two days for getting acclimatised to the conditions. On Oct.24, they trekked to Lobuche which is about 7 kms, with a recorded temperature of minus 5 degrees and on Oct.25, they trekked to the Gorakshep and found a Maharaja Shivaji Memorial constructed by Giripremi of Pune.

After trekking for more than 60kms on Maroons, ridges, boulders, landslides region, hanging bridges, cold paths, crossing various mountains, they finally came to Khumbhu Glacier and the Everest Base camp which is at a height of about 17,500 feet in Hindu Himalaya Kindgom in Nepal.

Riya, daughter of D.S.D. Solanki, Founder Trustee of Tiger Adventure Foundation, narrates it was a very emotional moment to all of us. She said, “A rare incident I noticed was, I saw a citizen of USA who is a native of Gujarat became so emotional that he cried and he said this was the moment he was waiting as he immersed the ashes of his mother at the Everest base camp.”

The team members from the Karnataka, Kerala and Telangana were D.S.D. Solanki, Riya Solanki, D.P. Shreekanth Jain, Raghavendra Rao Kashinath Narayan, Sridevi Champati, (Telangana) Shaji Mathew, Benny Mathew, and (Kerala) Tara Muniyappa. The programme was coordinated by Ambarish Joshi of Nagpur.