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At 6.10 a.m. on May 19, Dr. Usha Hegde, a professor at JSS Dental College in Mysuru, etched history by becoming the first civilian from not only Mysuru, but entire Karnataka to scale Mount Everest, the tallest peak in the world, standing at a height of 29,031 ft.
Today’s News :
A mother of two students of medicine and wife of an orthopaedic doctor, Dr. Usha realised her dream of reaching the ‘top of the world’ at the age of 52.
Major Smitha Lakshman, who was part of an Army team, is the only other woman mountaineer from Karnataka to reach the peak of Mt. Everest in 2012.
Dr. Usha is the first civilian from the State to have accomplished the ‘Himalayan feat’, according to mountaineers and adventure sports enthusiasts from Mysuru.
Despite her background in endurance sports, Dr. Usha undertook a couple of mountaineering expeditions to places like Ladakh, Uttarkashi, Nepal, and to Africa, where she scaled Mount Kilamanjaro in Tanzania, which is the tallest peak in Africa, standing at a height of 19,340 ft, before aiming for Mount Everest, the tallest in the world.
She underwent months of preparation, including a technical training programme at Tata Steel Adventure Foundation (TSAF) in Jamshedpur that helped instil confidence in her to face the likely challenges she could encounter, like negotiating glaciers, crevasses and rocky surfaces, in the mighty Himalayas.