To become the first Indian to conquer the seven

BANGALORE: A quintessential Mumbaiker, nursing dreams of scaling great heights, Gautam Patil is set to become the first Indian to conquer the seven tallest mountains in the world.
Patil has summitted Mt Denali in Alaska, Mt Aconcagua in Argentina, Mt Vinson Massif in Antartica, Mt Elbrus in Russia and Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. He was scheduled to climb Mt Kosciusko in Australia at the time of interview. This April, the final leg of his expedition to summit the world`s highest mountain, Mt Everest will begin. A climb he has been training for since 1998.

This avid mountaineer is also a tech entrepreneur and founding director of the Silicon Valley Product Management Association. Proud of his Mumbai affiliation he claims, "A Mumbaiker is a world citizen." Patil plans to celebrate his Everest climb with his Mumbai-based family.

Patil will embark on the Everest mission with a multi-faith team headed by an American Lance Trumbull and comprised of Christians, Buddhists, Jews, a Hindu, Muslim and an atheist. The climb will be part of the Everest Peace Project, which aims to promote global peace and is slated to summit in early June.

For the first time, Israeli and Palestinian climbers will participate in the climb together. Finding interested candidates wasn`t easy, "It took 18 months to find a Palestinian climber," says Trumbull. The expedition starts in April from the Tibetan side of Mt Everest.

The punishing terrain has claimed many lives, with reportedly 120 corpses yet to be recovered. It is this factor that fuels respect among mountaineers, "Every year, people die on Mt Everest because they take on the expedition with less respect than what it requires," says Patil.

Patil has had many close shaves during climbs. Recently, during a Russian expedition, after negotiating a crevasse field, huge gaping voids on glaciers, he wound up slipping on `scree` or sandy pebbles and falling down a cliff. "It was a sheer fall of at least 45 feet," he says. Realising a search party might not find him in time, Patil had to think fast, "I put on my extra clothes for protection, sat on the edge of the cliff and let go. I would like to say that my life whizzed past me, but it didn`t. I felt like going `aaaa,` but before anything came out, I hit ice and was flung out. God was watching because I didn`t even break a bone," he says.

Jayalakshmi Venugopal
Wednesday, April 05, 2006 00:18 IST