Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Chandigarh
A woman IPS officer posted with the Indo-Tibetan Border Police Force (ITBP) has successfully scaled Mount Denali in Alaska, which is the highest peak in North America. With this achievement, Aparna Kumar, has also successfully completed her “Seven Summits Challenge,” that entailed scaling the highest peak in each continent.
Aparna Kumar unfurled the Tricolour as well as the ITBP ensign on the summit. From the 2002 batch of the Uttar Pradesh cadre, she is currently posted as Deputy Inspector General with ITBP’s Northern Frontier at Dehradun. She is now the first civil servant and IPS officer from India to achieve this rare feat.
An ITBP spokesperson said that a recorded voice message has been received from Denali that Aparna and her guide, Sebastian Grau, finally reached the top of the mountain on her third attempt.
Mount Denali has a summit elevation of 20,310 feet above sea level. With a topographic prominence of 20,156 feet and a topographic isolation of 7450 kms, Denali is the third most prominent and third most isolated peak on Earth, after Mount Everest in Nepal and Aconcagua in Argentina.
Aparna had left India for the Denali expedition on June 15 and was expected to reach Summit around July 10, but fair weather and tenacity made her reach the target much before. Enroute, she experienced temperatures of minus 40 degree Celsius and high speed icy winds blowing up to 250 kmph. There was also the constant risk of encountering Denali’s infamous and unpredictable bad weather.
Aparna had scaled Mount Everest in May 2016 and in January this year reached the South Pole after walking 111 kms on snow, both achievements being the first for an IPS officer.
Her next target is to reach the North Pole in the summer of 2020 and complete the “Explorer’s Grand Slam” which calls for scaling the highest peak in each of the seven continent plus setting foot on the North and South Poles, which has been achieved only by a handful of people across the globe.
