The Hindu : National : Pune girl conquers yet another peak

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Pune girl conquers yet another peak

Staff Reporter

— FILE PHOTO: PTI

Krushnaa Patil.

Mumbai: Twenty-year-old Pune girl Krushnaa Patil has reached yet another vertical limit as mountaineer.

After becoming the youngest person in Maharashtra to scale Mt. Everest, this girl has conquered Vinson Massif, the highest mountain in Antarctica. A Congress press note, felicitating the mountaineer, announced her feat here on Saturday.

Krushnaa scaled the Everest in May this year, when she was 19; followed by the Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. Vinson Massif, measuring a formidable 4,897 metres in height, is the third significant feather in Ms. Patil’s cap.

Passion for heights

Athlete Krushnaa’s passion for heights, her grit to pursue an expedition braving inclement climes and her mother’s consistent support, have helped her face dangerous expeditions, like the one to Mt. Everest.

Her early involvement in athletics has stood her in good stead. In an earlier interview to The Hindu, her mother Ranjana Patil said she had introduced her daughter to tennis, swimming, karate and skating. She has also been Krushnaa’s pillar of strength. While still in school, Krushnaa was an avid trekker and did several treks with institutes in Pune.

In her standard 10 vacations, she joined a course at the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering in Uttarkashi, where she secured an A grade and went on to do their advance course. There was no looking back from there. With an aim to conquer the peaks in all the continents, Krushnaa is well on a path to achieve newer heights.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan has expressed his admiration for Krushnaa’s feat. The government plans to felicitate her on her return from Antarctica.

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