Last year, 16-year-old Mithil Dedhia trekked to the Everest base camp with his uncle, Keval Kakka, a mountaineer who scaled the world's highest peak, also known as Chomolongma, 'the Goddess mother of the world' way back in 2019. That was the first time he saw a small glimpse of the world's tallest mountain peak. It piqued his interest in conquering it and experiencing the summit, first-hand. How would that feel? What must it be like to reach there and how do people actually go about it? His mind was swarming with questions and his heart was beating harder with excitement. Kakka, who's been there, done that-- he's scaled five eight-thousanders one after the other in a short span of time, encouraged his nephew to pursue his heart and go all out to scale Everest.
Everest, he told the teen, was as much about the mind as it was about strength and agility. Once he decided he'd scale the peak, there should be no looking back. Dedhia followed the advice to the T and was resolute about his decision to scale Everest. The very first step was to convince the parents, which to his surprise, turned out to be the easiest one. "Initially they dismissed me, saying it was the excitement that follows a trip to the Basecamp. They were hoping I'd forget all about it in a few days. But I was so determined that they had to give in," says Dedhia. In January this year, the plan was final: Mithil, a student of St Gregory High School in Mumbai's Chembur was going to be the first 17-year-old from the city to scale the world's highest mountain above sea level.
The first and foremost part of the preparation strategy was to achieve a certain level of fitness. That came from two to three hours of Calisthenics. Dedhia has been undergoing training for a year and it helped in building his endurance levels. To that, he added, running marathons, climbing staircases with weights tied to the ankles, and more. This went on from January through March. On April 2, he left for Kathmandu and from there to Lukla, a small and sleepy town in north-eastern Nepal popular among trekkers, who're geared up for the Everest Trek.
Thereafter, a nine-day trek took him to the Basecamp. Acclimatization at such altitudes is crucial because the body needs to adapt to thin layers of oxygen at higher altitudes given the scarcity of the element further up. Proper acclimatization makes the trip safe as well as more enjoyable. But despite resting for a few days, Dedhia found himself falling prey to morning sickness. "I was dizzy, at a point in time on a small two-day trek to Lobuche, a peak at 6119 metres I almost fainted and that kind of made me super nervous about the upcoming trek the following night from basecamp to Camp One. I was hopeless and disheartened but then pulled myself up sooner," he says, recalling the moments, in an interview with THE WEEK. "I was super nervous. But my uncle was with me the whole time during these rotations and so it took us eleven hours for us to reach Camp 1 and then we went to Camp 2 the next day at 6800 metres. That took us five hours. The weather was getting inhospitable and unpredictable by the day. On the night of May 12, at 11.30 pm in the face of harsh winds, we left for Camp 2. I was very slow and the daytime heat was killing me. I was able to reach Camp 2 at 5 in the evening," says Dedhia.
There he and other mountaineers stayed for two days and thereafter moved on further with their oxygen masks on. It took them another six hours to reach Camp 3. "There, I was super exhausted. Also because I was wearing the oxygen mask for the first time and it was physically draining to hike with the mask on, especially in the face of heavy snow. Our tent, which was placed on a vertical slope, was fully covered with snow. Somehow, we spent the night there before leaving for Camp 4. After an unforgettable and highly eventful ten hours, we found ourselves at Camp 4. Surprisingly, I wasn't exhausted at all; rather, I was energetic and very excited for what lay ahead," recalls Dedhia, animatedly. The team ate theplas and basic homemade food they were carrying along, and soon after left for the Summit at 8 am. At this point, Dedhia was by himself, along with his Sherpa and fellow mountaineers, who were more than a hundred at any point in time. His uncle, Kakka had accompanied him till Camp 3. Just after an hour of leaving for the summit, Dedhia's Sherpa fell sick with diarrhoea. That was at 8100 metres. And it meant that Dedhia had to wait for his Sherpa's replacement to come over. The wait on the way to the summit is actually what causes the most anxiety in climbers, says Dedhia. "My toes had begun to get numb in the snow, while I was waiting for more than an hour at one place."
He finally reached the Ridge Walk at 5380 metres. Despite wearing sunglasses, Dedhia had only 50 per cent visibility, because of the frost on the glasses that made it nearly impossible to see clearly. So here he was on 80-degree steep slopes at a height of close to 8450 metres, all of which he negotiated without being able to see anything clearly. He reached the "South Pole." Until then for a long time he had been on juices completely and preferred to not stuff himself with food. Then came the famous Hillary Step at 8600 metres, where Dedhia's oxygen mask went kaput, making it difficult for him to breathe. He had to remove it and gasp harder to be able to take in oxygen at a height where the element is less than or equal to only about 30 per cent of that at sea level. So here was this 17-year-old at close to 8500 metres, where he could barely see clearly, could barely breathe well in the absence of a functioning mask and was walking with a numb toe. Dedhia recalls the moment as one that drove him to panic, anxiety and nervousness such as he had never experienced before.
He decided against proceeding further. All he had to do was cross the remaining 200 metres before he could reach the top of the world. But that short distance seemed like an eternity. "My Sherpa was confident, encouraging and warm and was the sole person to convince me that I could do it. He changed my oxygen mask and I sat there for five minutes before moving ahead with small, calculated steps." The universe conspired to make it all happen for him, says Dedhia. just when he felt at his lowest, and coldest, the sun shone brightly as if taking the boy in a warm embrace. The frost on his glasses disappeared, he could breathe well and walk well. At 9 am that morning he finally reached the summit and soaked in the beauty around for a full 30 minutes. "I made it. It was a wonderful and a very powerful feeling," says Dedhia from the comfort of his home, a month and a half after he returned from Everest. He is presently nursing a frostbitten foot, but the wound he says, is hardly any price to pay in the face of the momentous accomplishment of having scaled Everest and fulfilled his long-cherished dream.
While the ascent was difficult and challenging, the descent from Everest, says Dedhia, is equally challenging if not more. First of all, he had to wait on the Hillary Step for a good 45 minutes only to allow those climbing up, to pass. "On my way, I encountered dead bodies, injured and deeply wounded fellow trekkers, and those who went tumbling down into danger right in front of my eyes. The descent is such that we all need to form a single line and move slowly one after the other. If you try to overtake, you'd slip, fall, tumble and die. We were all moving extremely cautiously; it took me five hours to reach Camp 4. We were there at 2 pm." From there he was to go to Lhotse, the fourth-highest mountain in the world, but frostbites on the finger and a blister on the toe, kept him from pursuing it. A few minutes into the descent, with the rope slipping from his numb hands, Dedhia had a "deep fall" that led him to further injure his hands and legs. Somehow having managed to reach Camp 2 where he saw his feet were completely frostbitten, he was rescued in a helicopter to Kathmandu.
More than the happiness that comes with summiting Everest, it was that on his first 8000'er, he was able to make the right decisions and return from the peak safe and sound. "The injuries I brought back with me, feel sweet in the face of the hardships I endured up there," he says. One can sense the enthusiasm and energy in his voice as he recalls his first-ever summit, and is already in preparation for his next one.
Dedhia had just appeared for his Class 12 exams before setting out for the trek. It was a much-needed break, he says, laughing. He's currently pursuing a program in graphic design and visual communications. "It took me seven to eight months of rigorous preparation to make my body fit for the trek. this despite the fact that I have an agile and fit body, that has been trained into calisthenics for a couple of years now," he says. Dedhia weighed 57 when he set off for the trek; he lost six kilos during the trek. He now weighs a healthy 53 kilos. His initiation into trekking happened way back at the age of seven, courtesy of Kakka who took him along on weekend monsoon treks and camping trips in the Sahayadris. Ever since he's been a regular at snow treks. From 2018 through 2022, Dedhia spent his Decembers' on some or other snow trek. In December of 2022, he successfully accomplished five long treks in the snow within India including an expedition to a 6200-metre peak in Leh Ladakh. The mantra remains: "Mountains are calling, and I must go."
