Doodi Bhadraiah, a tribal youth, has created a record of sorts by climbing world’s highest mount — the Everest — on Friday, and he is first tribal lad from Andhra Pradesh to achieve the feat — after bifurcation.
He is part of the Transcend Adventures International Mount Everest, Hyderabad, a professional unit led by Arjun awardee Sekhar Babu Bachinepally. This year, Mr. Babu took eight others along with Bhadraiah to the expedition. The ‘Koya’ lad is from of Kothapalli village in Chinturu mandal, which was merged into East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh from Khammam district in Telangana.
His arduous journey started on April 8. After reaching Kathmandu (Nepal), he completed documentation work and flew to Lhasa with his team. He stayed for three days there to get acclimatised to the weather.
The team started climbing Mt. Everest from April 20 and reached the North Base camp (5,200m height) and later reached 8,300m on May 19 to set up a summit camp.
“It was so exiting leaving the Summit Camp — world’s highest elevated camp — around 9 p.m. on Thursday night. I climbed for entire night to reach the 8,848m mark on Friday morning along with my team. It is my life’s goal to climb the Everest. I have achieved it,” said Bhadraiah who called Integrated Tribal Development Agency Project Officer KVN Chakradharababu over satellite phone from the base camp, who incidentally supported him financially for this adventurous trip.
The road to become part of team was not easy for Bhadraiah. Last year, he visited the rock-climbing school at Bhuvanagiri in Nalgonda district and met the coach Mr. Sekhar Babu who responded favourably to his plea to admit him in the team.
After a training session at Bhuvanagiri Fort, Mr. Bhadraiah emerged as one of the two persons selected for the expedition.
After completing an industrial training programme from Kothagudem College, he worked for the Andhra Pradesh Power Generation Corporation plant near Mothugudem on contract basis. “My parents are farm labourers,” he said.
