Bhubaneswar: Noted Odia mountaineer Sidharth Routray scaled Mount Elbrus, the highest and most prominent peak in Europe. Sidharth summitted the 5642 meter high (18510 ft) mountain peak at 9 am on Wednesday.
Sidharth, son of veteran Congress leader and MLA Suresh Routray, had reached the nearest airport to Mt Elbrus – Mineralnye Vody on April 24 and rested in a hotel near the airport. The next day, his guide picked him up and other two other climbers – one from Kazakhstan and another from Russia. They moved to the ski town of Terskol.
On April 26, they did a long hike to the Treskol Observatory at 10000 ft and the next day went up to a camp at 9000 ft and hiked up to 12000 ft. All of sudden it was all snow and ice followed by snow storm. “We dared the weather and continued our training,” said Sidharth in a message.
On April 28, they again hiked upto 13000 ft in the snow storm and rested at 9000 ft from where the team moved to the high camp at 12500 ft the next day. However, the climber from Kazakhstan got sick and had to quit.
On April 30, they did one more hike to 15000 ft and rested and the next day they started their summit push as the weather was predicted to be good. It was nice in the night but as they started moving up it started getting worse. They were 1 km from the summit it became dangerous. After a 15-hour ordeal, they decided to go back to camp safely.
On May 2, Sidharth pursued the guide to try again on Wedesday after a good day’s rest, while the Russian member gave up. On Wednesday, they ventured out wqith same routine of a summit day. The final phase was very steep. Thanks to the extra cold, their movement was safer as the snow was harder. “We reached the top at 9 am exactly as planned. It was magical on the top as every mountain you crossed on the way up looks like godly characters amongst clouds,” said Sidharth, thanking Lord Jagannath and Lord Lingaraj for the feat. He said he was proud to wear Sambalpuri Shirt and Khurda Gamuchha atop Mt Elbrus. They were back at high camp safely around 1 am.
