KUALA LUMPUR: N. Elanghovan may be 64 but his success in scaling Mount Everest has fuelled his desire to conquer the G7 (Seven Summits, Seven Continents) in the future.
The G7 refers to the seven highest mountains in the world on seven continents that climbers aim to conquer, including Everest (8,850 meters), Aconcagua in Argentina (6,961 meters), Denali in Alaska (6,194 meters), Kilimanjaro in Africa (5,895 meters) and Elbrus in Russia (5,642 meters).
Elanghovan, who is fondly known as Elango and who looked to be in good health and high-spirited during a special virtual media conference today, said age was just a number and would not prevent him from realising his dream.
Although the movement control order during the Covid-19 pandemic hampered his training sessions, it did not dampen nor break his spirit to continue with his mission, which had been put on the back-burner since 2020.
"I first came to the Everest Base Camp (EBC) in 2014… that time it was an inspiration to climb Mount Everest.
"In 2019, T. Ravichandran, 57, and I went to Nepal and scaled Island Peak. At that time, I learned a lot about climbing from Ravi," said Elango, who is currently at the EBC, via Google Meet today.
Elango said that although the training they underwent here was not as intense, it was still enough for them physically and stamina-wise to scale Mount Everest this time.
"No need to climb up 8,000-metre (m) high mountains, having a good mindset, knowledge and guidance will be enough to encourage one to conquer Mount Everest," he said.
Elango, who is currently at a height of 5,000m, said the weather was good but cold at the ECB but every member of the expedition team was in good health.
Elango, who is a member of the 'Keluarga Malaysia-Everest Expedition 2022', has so far climbed Island Peak (6,189m), Everest Base Camp (5,360m), Annapurna Base Camp (4,130m) and Mount Kalapathar (5,643m), all in Nepal; as well as the highest peak on the African continent, Mount Kilimanjaro (5,895m) in Tanzania; and Mount Fuji (3,776m) in Japan.
Meanwhile, solo climber Ravichandran, who is also known as Ravi Everest after scaling Mount Everest twice in 2006 and 2007, said the climb this time was different as he was able to celebrate the success of reaching the peak with the team, especially Elango.
"The climb this time is different because it is no longer a solo hike and I got to share the joy of reaching the peak together with Elanghovan, I could see them, touch their shoulders and watch their tears of joy… that's what the difference is compared to my previous solo efforts," he said.
Commenting on their expedition this time, he said the team began their ascend on May 2 toward camp one, camp two and camp three and stopped to rest on May 5 before continuing their climb from May 9-11 before reaching the peak on May 12.
He said he would continue his mission to climb Mount Everest for the fourth time without using an oxygen tank on April 1 next year.--BERNAMA