City man first in South India to scale Mt Lhotse

Hyderabad: A city-based mountaineer recently set a record by being the first South Indian to scale Mt Lhotse, the 4th highest peak in the world.

Bharath Thammineni, a 30-year-old entrepreneur from Hyderabad, achieved this feat last Thursday. The professional mountaineer has also scaled Mt Everest two times already. He is also the founder of his company 'Boots & Crampons' which plans and executes all of his mountaineering trips.

Bharath's mountaineering passion began when he was in sixth standard. "My schooling was in Guntur and trekking was part of our curriculum. We used to trek the small hills around our school and that's where it all began," he said, speaking to The Hans India.

He underwent a basic course at Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling. He started trekking high-altitude peaks way 2014. Since then, he has scaled Mt Everest, Mt Manasulu (the 8th highest peak in the world), Mt Aconcagua (highest peak of South America), Mt Elbrus (highest peak in Europe) and Mt Kilimanjaro (highest peak in Africa).

His ultimate goal is to scale all seven highest peaks of the world as well as all 14 death zone peaks (peaks above 8000 meters' altitude) in the world. Bharath started his company 'Boots & Crampons' in 2017 and has since trained around 1,200 students in mountaineering.

He was the one who trained Samanyu Pothuraju, who is the youngest to climb both Mt Kilimanjaro and Mt Kosciuszko. He said, "I regularly go on expeditions with some of my clients. We sponsor ourselves and take help from local guides to go on these expeditions."

Speaking of the goal for his company, he said, "Our company has held expeditions in five continents so far, excluding North America and Antarctica. We soon plan to change that." He hopes to inspire others to trek high-altitude peaks besides Everest.

By Mounica Alamuri