Mumbai: Navy Children School's 16-Year-Old Kaamya Karthikeyan Becomes Youngest Female Mountaineer To Complete Seven Summits Challenge

Mumbai: A Class-12 student from Mumbai’s Navy Children School scripted history by becoming the youngest female in the world to scale seven highest peaks across seven continents. The young mountaineer completed the Seven Summits Challenge, which involves climbing the highest point on each continent.

On Tuesday, Kaamya Karthikeyan (16) reached the summit of Antartica’s highest peak Mt. Vincent and scripted history for becoming the youngest female mountaineer to complete the Seven Summits challenge. Earlier in May, Kaamya had become the youngest Indian and second youngest female mountaineer to summit Mt. Everest from the south side.

Kaamya summited Africa’s Mt. Kilimanjaro in October 2017, Europe’s Mt. Elbrus in June 2018, Australia’s Mt. Kosciuszko in Novemeber 2018, South America’s Mt. Aconcagua February 2020, North America’s Mt. Denali in June 2022 and the Mt. Everest in May.

Kaamya started her mountaineering journey at the age of 7 years with a trek to Chandrashila Peak. Since then she has added multiple feathers to her cap that includes being the youngest girl to summit Mt. Aconcagua, the youngest non-American to summit Mt. Denali, the youngest person to ski down from the summit of Mt. Elbrus and the youngest ever to climb a peak above 6,000 metres.

After her successful summit to Mt. Everest, Kaamya decided to take the last step to complete her seven summits challenge and planned her climb to the final frontier Mt. Vincent. She also initiated a fundraiser for her final summit and over 180 people supported her journey by donating around Rs7 lakh. She was also sponsored by multiple corporates and non-government organisations on her journey.

Kaamya’s achievements were praised by her school and the Indian Navy also congratulated the young mountaineer and her father on accomplishing this momentous milestone.

Kaamya has received the PM Rashtriya Bal Shakti Puraskar and was also appreciated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in one of his Mann Ki Baat addresses.