Meet Mr. Akhil, a mountaineer and a man of sheer willpower from Hanamkonda in Telangana.

“Mountain climbing has been a huge part of my life’s journey. Growing up, I was inspired by S Anand Kumar, who was the first Dalit to climb the world’s highest peak, Mt. Everest in 2014 from Telangana. He was just 17 years old when he climbed Mt Everest while studying in the social welfare residential school. I too decided to pursue mountaineering.

As a child, I used to go out to have great adventures like climbing trees and swimming in our Village Kishanpura in Hanamkonda. And as I got older, I only wanted to go further, higher, steeper, and of course that leads to rock climbing, which then leads to mountaineering, and I never lost that desire to climb.

My father being an auto driver worked extremely hard to send me to school. After my Diploma course, I started working in a private company. Meanwhile, I started to work on my fitness and excelled in 5k and 10k marathons. That’s when the local administrative representatives encouraged me to join the Bhongir Rock Climbing School and train in mountaineering. After a brief course, I set out to climb Africa’s highest peak, Mount Kilimanjaro with the selection of Shekhar Babu, the well-known mountaineer from Telangana.

Just traveling all the way to Africa was a dream come true. It was a 10-day trek and I was accompanied by two others from Andhra Pradesh and a local guide. As we began trekking higher, the oxygen levels fell and we could see the effects it had. Breathing got difficult and energy levels also kept falling. At one point, a fellow mountaineer dropped out and that scared us a bit. But I came so far and this was the only chance I had to accomplish this. Before that, I also submitted Mt. Stok Kangri in Ladakh. Later, I went on to summit Panger Chulla’s peak trek in Nepal. I have successfully completed Mount Elbrus summit in Russia which is the highest mountain on the European continent which is situated in the western part of the Caucasus Mountains, rising up to 5,642 m (18,510 ft) above sea level.

I gave myself all the strength and reached the peak point on 15 August 2021 at 8.30 am despite the heavy wind, freezing temperatures and snowfall. The temperatures hovered between -25 to -30 degrees Celsius during our journey. As I stood there, on the highest peak of Africa, everything seemed surreal. I couldn’t believe all this happened and I achieved something I never even thought about. It’s a journey I didn’t plan but I’m so happy it happened. It opened me up to many more things.

My successful summits were only possible with the support of my family, well-wishers and the local government officials. The mountaineering experiences taught me so much about life. My parents and friends were worried as I was not reachable on the phone during my summits but the moment they got to know about my successful summits , they were extremely happy and proud. No matter what our financial status was and where we came from, they always encouraged me to do what I wanted. My next target is Mount Everest and I am looking forward to scaling it very soon when I can get sufficient funds and make my parents and well-wishers proud.”