Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Mountaineer Bhawna Dehariya has said that she is feeling proud to have unfurled the national flag on the highest mountain peak in Europe on the 75th anniversary of India’s freedom on Monday.
Bhawna, who hails from Bhopal, has told the Free Press over the telephone from her base camp in Russia that she is fine but somewhat dehydrated.
The mountaineer who is mother of a 15-month-old daughter says she hasn’t talked with her little one since leaving Bhopal on August 8. “As a mother, it was very difficult for me, but what to do. I have no option. I knew that if I talked with her, I would become emotional and that would weaken my resolve to hoist the Tiranga,” she says, adding that, “So, I only see her on video call but didn’t talk to her.”
She says that the first three days her daughter cried a lot but her hubby, mother and mother-in-law managed her. “I got huge support from my family,” she says.
Bhawna climbed Mount Elbrus, the highest peak in Europe, at around 8 am IST (5.30 am local time) and unfurled the national tricolour. 18,510 feet above mean sea level, Mt. Elbrus is located in the Caucasus Mountains in Russia.
Bhawna says that the weather suddenly turned bad after she left the base camp. “The visibility was less than 25 metres, the temperature was around minus 25 degrees and frosty winds were blowing,” she said.
She says that she wanted to do something unique on India’s 75th Independence Day and that was why she decided to accept the challenge.
Bhawna had scaled Mount Everest in 2019. In the same year, she climbed Mount Kosciuszko in Australia. She has also scaled Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro, the continent's highest peak.
On August 10, she and her team left Moscow for Mineralnye Vody, from where their journey uphill was to begin. On 13 August, at midnight, she left for Mount Elbrus.
The 30-year-old mountaineer is determined to scale the highest peaks of all the seven continents as part of her "Seven Summits Quest" and unfurl the tricolour at the summits. Bhawna is expected to be back in the city by August 24.
