Are your children getting enough time to love the outdoors?
Swimming, tennis, badminton, basketball, football, cricket and yoga are all a part and parcel of urban life but trekking is just a different experience. It is irreplaceable for both, parents and kids. It involves a lot of teamwork, instruction following, extremely adventurous and a lot more.
Today, we are going to share the experience of a 9-year-old boy, Advait Bhartiya, form Pune who successfully scaled Mt. Kilimanjaro with his mom. This makes him one of the youngest children to have climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. He also scaled Everest Base camp at the age of 6. How inspiring is this?
This Is His Story:
I am the youngest Indian to summit the Everest Base Camp. I was only 6 years old then. Now, I have added a new feather to my cap by having scaled the Mt. Kilimanjaro at the age of 9 years. I went along with my mom, Payal Bhartia and an expedition leader Samir Patham and began my trek from the Machame route and reached the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro, Africa which is 18,652 ft on 31st July 2019.
This was a tough journey but I had taken intense training to achieve my goal. My routine included swimming for an hour, cardiovascular training like playing football, cricket and tennis in the second hour, climbing 100 floors and practising Parkour. I went on treks around Pune and Leh & Ladakh to train. The thin air, the reduction in oxygen and the subzero temperatures ranging from 21 degrees to -25 degrees celsius got tough.
When I was summiting the Everest Base Camp, we were living in wooden houses but during the Kilimanjaro trek, we stayed in tents. This was a good experience because I got to see the snow and the beautiful surroundings. During the trek, the summiteers addressed me as ‘Simbum ToTo’, meaning ‘Little Simba’. My mom’s journey was cut short by 1000 ft. because she had trouble adjusting to the altitude. However, I did not lose hope to finish my trek.
I think age is just a number and if you are given the right exposure, hard work and dogged determination then you can succeed through any hardship. Just because I trek that doesn’t mean I gave up on school and other extra curricular activities.. I am an avid skier and I have skied from Switzerland to Italy over Easter break, I am surfer, I can play the piano, violin, guitar and drums and I am the youngest Indian to carry an international Mandarin language.
My next goal is to scale Mt. Elbrus next year. My trek was organized by Pune-based adventure and trekking company Adventure Plus. My trainer Samir Patham has been with me through the 12 days of Everest Base Camp and 7 days of Mt. Kilimanjaro – keeping me occupied with stories of mountaineering, legends of Mount Everest, the great Himalayan myth of the yeti as well stories of Rudyard Kipling and Ruskin Bond.