Malavath Poorna, first tribal girl from Telangana to scale the six highest peaks

Hyderabad: Telangana girl Malavath Poorna becomes the first woman to set foot on six tallest peaks in six continents. Hailing from the tribal village of Pakala in Nizamabad, she is also one of the youngest to do so. On December 30, she scaled Mount Vinson Massif in Antarctica, making it an excellent year-end for mountaineers.

Her journey of climbing peaks began from her village, where she used to climb small hills. Due to her endurance and interest, she scaled Mount Everest in 2014. It motivated her to climb the highest peaks in the world. After Mount Everest, Poorna scaled Mt Kilimanjaro (Africa, 2016), Mt Elbrus (Europe, 2017), Mt Aconcagua (South America, 2019), Mt Carstensz (Oceania region, 2019) and Mt Vinson Massif (Antarctica, 2019). Scaling Vinson Massif, Antarctica’s highest peak (4,987 metres) was an achievement beyond words for Poorna.

After reaching the top of Mt Vinson Massif, Poorna used a satellite phone to call and thank her coach Sekhar Babu Bachinepally of Transcend Adventures, Hyderabad. She also called Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (TSWREIS) Secretary Dr RS Praveen Kumar for helping her to achieve this feat. She is also grateful to K Chandrasekhar Rao for the welfare schemes he initiated, through which she was able to collect funds for her mountaineering.

Poorna’s parents work as agricultural labourers in their village, and she is currently pursuing an undergraduate course at the Minnesota State University, USA. She is a fellow of the Global Undergraduate Exchange Programme by America.

Poorna will be now preparing to scale the highest mountain in North America — Mount Denali (6,140 metres). With this, she will complete her achievement of climbing the seven summits. Praising her success, Dr Praveen Kumar said, “Poorna’s expeditions will remain engraved in golden letters in the annals of the world’s mountaineering history. Today, Poorna has become an accomplished world-class mountaineer and pride of Telangana and India.”