First Indian woman to scale five peaks over 8,000m says climbing brings her ‘peace, happiness’
- Priyanka Mohite has climbed some of the world’s highest mountains before 30, undaunted by challenges including Covid-19, natural disasters and a lack of funding
- While reaching a summit leaves her ecstatic, she says ‘real happiness is found in the actual climb, in the barriers that you surmount, the fears that you conquer’
Growing up in a little town in Maharashtra, Indian mountaineer Priyanka Mohite was a regular student who had decent grades and was a good dancer, but her outsize thirst for adventure was undeniable.
“I tried my hand at everything adventurous around my small town, from rock-climbing to trekking. It was my schoolteacher who told my parents to send me to a good mountaineering institute where I could get the requisite training to realise my potential,” said the 29-year-old on a call from Kathmandu.
“It was a difficult decision for my parents as I was good at my studies and classical dance, and taking up this adventurous sport was not something that they had imagined would be my future.”
But fate took its course and with her parents’ support, Mohite went to the famous Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, Uttarkashi, and nurtured her life’s passion.
“I climbed my first peak of 17,600 feet (5,364 metres) in 2010. To someone who had never even seen snow-covered mountains in South India, my journey to climbing the Himalayan peaks felt like a dream,” she said.
Three years later, Mohite set her sights on scaling five peaks above 8,000m – a challenge she completed earlier this month when she reached the summit of Mt Kanchenjunga, the world’s third-highest mountain at 8,586m above sea level.