Chanda Gayen, a mountaineer from West Bengal, has successfully scaled the Mt Everest on Saturday, becoming the third woman from the state to conquer the highest mountain peak in the world. According to information received here from the base camp at Solo Khumbu in Nepal, Chanda reached the top at 7 am after beginning the last part of her journey to the peak from camp four at South Col on Friday night taking the South East ridge route.
Before Chanda, Kunga Bhutia from Darjeeling in 1994 and Maj (retired) Shipra Majumdar from Murshidabad in 2004 successfully climbed the peak.
Chanda began from Kolkata on March 28 and reached the base camp at Solo Khumbu after trekking for seven days through the Namche Bazar and Thayangboche on April 8.
She was accompanied by many other Indian mountaineers, both men and women, who have positioned themselves at the higher camps and waiting for favourable weather conditions to reach the top of the peak.
Chanda, a Howrah resident in her mid 30s, began her climbing career from a city-based mountaineering club, Institute of Exploration, and later trained at the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling.
She had earlier climbed Jogin I and III in Garhwal Himalaya in 2008 and Manirang in Himachal Pradesh last year.