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UP IPS officer Aparna Kumar has become the country's first civil servant to scale Mount Vinson Massif, which is the highest peak in the Antarctica.
UP IPS officer Aparna Kumar has become the country’s first civil servant to scale Mount Vinson Massif, which is the highest peak in the Antarctica.
Among many success stories told to us about women, here’s another story from an IAS officer from UP who not just has a happy story as a government servant but will now be known as the country’s first civil servant to scale Mount Vinson Massif, the highest peak in the Antarctica. An adventure like this is a dream for many mountaineers and the country is proud to see this UP cadre achieve what seems to be a task close to impossible.
On January 5th, Aparna had started on an expedition to Antartica with a team of 10 mountaineers from countries across the world. She completed an advanced course at the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Mountaineering in 2013, thus allowing her to be an integral part of expedition. Plodding through the completely snow filled land of mountains and ice bergs in about -35 degrees temperature, Aparna, a professional mountaineer, reached the peak on January 17, where she hoisted the UP Police flag along with the Indian tri-colour.
She was out of communication range for nine days during the expedition, and returned to base after surviving icy winds blowing at 100km/hour, and losing over 6kg.
She has always been a person who loves mountaineering and her success in this field proves it. She scaled Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania in August 2014, the highest peak in Africa, and continued to train for her next expedition. In November, she climbed the Carstensz Pyramid peak in West Papuan province of Indonesia, the highest peak in Australia and Oceania region, again the first IPS officer to achieve the feat.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav had conferred Aparna with the Rani Laxmi Bai award in March 2015 and now he has congratulated her for the feat. Presently, she is posted as DIG telecom in Lucknow. Aparna has now scaled 5 of the 7 summits considered the most challenging for mountaineers in the world and has set higher goals for herself.
She plans to scale the Mount Everest in April- May, and Mount McKinley in Alaska in July-August. An avalanche in 2014 and an earthquake in 2015 had prevented Aparna from scaling the Everest in her earlier attempts.
Cover image via Twitter
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