At 23, he has scaled four 8,000-m peaks — Mount Everest, Summit Lhotse, Mt Manaslu and Mt Makalu. Noida resident Arjun Vajpai is the youngest Indian — and the second-youngest in the world — to have summitted Mount Everest at the age of 16, or more precisely, 16 years, 11 months and 18 days. On May 20, 2011, he became the youngest climber to summit Lhotse, at 17; on October 4, 2011, he became the youngest explorer to Mt Manaslu. And, finally, on May 23, 2016, he conquered Mt Makalu on his fourth attempt.
Vajpai's father was an army captain, while his mother is deeply interested in arts. As a kid, he could never commit himself to academics, and his grades were a constant source of worry. He recounts, “Books were never my thing. It was like my teachers and parents wanted a fish to climb a tree! Academically, I just couldn’t perform. My parents were always worried. I flunked in all the pre-board papers in Class X! However, I was the best in sports and extracurricular activities.”
Trekking would consume his entire life — and Vajpai knew it early on. He fondly remembers, “My nana once took me for a walk to Hanuman Tekadi on Sahadari Mountains in Pune. After reaching the clifftop, I told him that I wanted to see the sunset from the highest point of the Earth. Then, I had no idea about the import of my words. Nana told me about Mount Everest and I told him that I would be there some day. ”
But things got tough. Vajpai knew mountaineering meant a lot of hard work and rigorous physical training. He also realised that he had to somehow maintain a balance between academics and training. He finished his board exams and applied to Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, Uttarkashi, for basic mountaineering training at the age of 14. He weighed 56 kg at the time, while a trekker was required to carry a backpack that could get as heavy as 40 kg. The instructors were initially sceptical, since the minimum age to apply for the course was 17. “Most instructors felt, ‘the younger you are, the more vulnerable you will be,’” recalls Vajpai. “But when I finally joined the course, I realised trekking was a lot of science, maths and general knowledge. It was really tough though — there were times when I felt I would never come back.”
However, after the basic course, Vajpai did go back for an advance course in NILM and proved himself exceptional. He recalls, “The advance course ends with a live expedition. I was just 15 on that trek. When I reached the top, my coach said, ‘Congratulations! You are the youngest to climb DKD2 in the Garhwal Himalayas.’” He remembers telling his coach then that he wanted to climb Mount Everest and the coach responding with a kind "one day you will".
Initially, it seemed like a distant dream, as sponsors were hard to find and an expedition cost a whopping Rs 30 lakh. “When you are determined, things somehow work out," says a smiling Vajpai. "I got a huge media response for DKD2, and my dream to conquer the Everest was soon all over the news. Twenty-five thousand people contributed to my dream coming true.”
On May 22, 2010, Vajpai set the world record by becoming the second-youngest person in the world to climb Mount Everest.
Life was never the same after Vajpai’s Everest summit. He set new missions for himself every year. His love for the mountains continued to grow. He set himself a goal — to hoist the national flag on the 14 most difficult mountain terrains in the world. In 2011, he added two "youngest" titles to his name. On May 2011, he became the youngest person to summit Mt Lhotse in Nepal; in the same year, on October 4, he summited Mt Manaslu, again in Nepal.
Being a mountaineer, Vajpai knows he can come face to face with death any day, but that doesn’t deter the braveheart. He came closest to death during his Mount Cho Oyu expedition in 2012 in Tibet. He came back almost dead, with his entire left side paralysed. He was left in the open for two days in sub-zero temperatures.
“But with every failed expedition, I learnt a valuable lesson,” he says. His failure at Cho Oyu helped him prepare for Makalu. He reduced his sleep time to just 3-4 hours and underwent rigorous training for 11-16 hours a day.
On May 23, 2016, he summitted the "sixth deadliest ascent in the world", which has a death toll twice that of Mount Everest. “My ascent to the top of Mt Makalu was, perhaps, the most painful. I attempted it thrice and failed due to a variety of reasons. In 2013, a shortage of ropes proved to be a major challenge. In 2014, death of a co-climber forced me to retreat. In my third attempt, in 2015, I was almost there when the Nepal earthquake struck,” Arjun elaborates. He finally made the summit on May 23, 2016.
When not on the mountains, Vajpai trains and motivates others like him — to love nature and be inspired by it. He is also actively involved in his pet project, Climb For Climate Change, in which he uses his mountaineering experience to push for a greener ecosystem and sustainable living in the mountains.
