The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : `Mountain man' creates new climbing record

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 16, 2006
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

`Mountain man' creates new climbing record

J.S. Ifthekhar

Climbs 7 summits in 172 days Climbs 7 summits in 172 days

Hyderabad: He loves challenges and revels in surmounting them. For Malli Mastan Babu no peak is too high. This software engineer from Nellore has just accomplished mission impossible. Hold your breath. He has climbed seven summits in just 172 days flat creating a new record.

What is unique about this 32-year-old mountaineer is that he is the only one in the world to scale seven summits on seven days of the week — one in each calendar month. Of course he is the only south Asian to accomplish this feat.

Seven summits

The seven summits scaled by Babu are Mount Everest (Sunday), Mount Denali (Monday), Mount Elbrus (Tuesday), Mount Kilimanjaro (Wednesday), Mount Vinson Massif (Thursday), Mount Aconcagua (Friday) and Mount Kosciuzsko (Saturday).

All these summits were scaled by Babu from January 19 to July 10 this year. Not just this. He has also climbed Mount Carstensz Pyramid, the tallest peak of Oceania in Indonesia. Interestingly, Babu is the only person from Andhra Pradesh to summit Mount Everest.

Did he encounter any difficulties during these exploits? "Yes. Once I got snow blind, suffered freeze bites and lost my climbing gear in Kathmandu. But still I carried on," says this guy with the never-say-die spirit.

Mega marathon run

What next? Babu plans to do a mega marathon run in February 2008.

What's that? He wants to run in each State of India on consecutive days — 29 States, 29 days, February 2008, a leap year.

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