20th December, 2021

Author: Preeti Sharma (Content Writer)

“Never underestimate anyone, work hard and you will succeed in life.” - Akriti Heer

The northern part of country has contributed a lot in field of sports and mountaineering is one of them. We have witnessed numerous females in sports who made our country proud. The northern part of our country is known for its beautiful mountains and valleys across the globe. One such state of this region is Himachal Pradesh and this mountain girl is Akriti Heer from Suliali Village district kangra. Akriti is born on 13th June 1994 and belong to the family of farmers, in her family her father Krishna Singh is a farmer and her mother is a housewife and she has one younger brother and an elder sister.

When Akriti was in school,she remembers one of her school teacher Seema Sharma,who after seeing her caliber and strength had motivated her that she should engaged in sports. When Akriti was in class 9th, she participated in games like Badminton and Cricket.Then she joined National Service Scheme (NSS) and later on joined National Cadet Corps (NCC) in the year 2012, here she was selected as best cadet from 7thPunjab Battalion Gurdaspur. She attended 16 camps across India for NCC. After completing NCC for two years, looking at her sincerity she was suggested by NCC that she should join mountaineering course. The passion of hoisting the National Flag at the top of the peak has fascinated her towards mountaineering. Initially she had faced a lot of financial problems as the coaching of mountaineering was expensive but looking at her zeal, NCC sponsored her mountaineering course.

In the year 2012, she started her training of Mountaineering from Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, Uttrakhand. It was a one-month course and she learnt climbing and tracking with the heavy weights of 25 Kg.Initial days of mountaineering was really heart wrenching for her and she felt that won’t be able to do it. In her school days she had played cricket a lot and turning herself into an adventurous sport was quite tough decision, and when her parents got to know her decision of making mountaineering as life career and then being knowing the fact that it will be backbreaking and challenging path for Akriti, they supported her in this decision and moving on from the second day itself she changed her mind and devoted herself in mountaineering sport with the dream to represent India. Akriti says, “This journey was really zestful and from that particular moment mountain became my temper”.

The vision was still beaming and she had a very strong aspiration for this. After successful training she was awarded by A Grade. She decided that now her goal is to climb the seven Summits of the world and hoist the tricolor flag of India on them. In the year 2012, Akriti has proven her skills and made her first attempt at Gangotri peak crest at 16,000 feet in Uttarkashi, Uttrakhand. It was her career’s first achievement which made her motivated and full of courage. After conquering this peak Akriti decided that now her aim to climb the highest peaks in the world and hoist our flag on them.

She received many acknowledgements from her village and well-wishers as well. The bubble of happiness made her motivated to scale one of the highest and prominent peak situated in Russia and Europe named as Mount Elbrus (18,510 feet).She discussed this with her family and they encouraged to go make a record, but the cost of the entire trip was out of reach for her father and her enthusiasm gone down when she didn’t even get the financial support from government to sponsor her trip as other girls who were her senior got the sponsorship from government.At that time her father took a loan of 4Lakhs to espouse her this trip. Arunima Sinha and Sachi Soni who was national mountaineer accompanied Akriti in this trip along with other mountaineers. The climbing was not easyand the hurdles were really colossal, during climbing the peak, she experienced crevasses,avalanches and chilly weather, she survived on soups and breads. Her guidetold her that she is slow in climbing as compared to other mountaineers and she should come in last. Thisfelt Akriti discouraging, but she could manage and climbed under difficult conditions to scale the peak in five days.

On 24 July, 2014, crossing all the challenges and hurdles, Akriti became the youngest Indian mountaineer who climb world highest peak Mount Elbrus in Europe and set a record for being there for more than 25 minutes in– 40 degree temperature. It was her dream to represent the country and unfurl the National flag; after completing this trip, Akriti name was listed in Limca book of Records.

After achieving the miraculous feathers and accolades, still Akriti had not receive any financial support or sponsorshipor prize money neither from the State government nor from Central Government which is really disheartening for a sports person like her,who has taken all the possible steps to getting things done. She approach government officials to provide her job, so that she can support her father in repaying the loan amount but till date nothing has happened.She has a dream to climb the seven highest peaks of the world but it is only possible if she gets a proper training and sponsorship or financial aid from the government. She wants the government to support and encourage the mountaineers of our country.

After the achievement of Mount Elbrus, her vision was to do something for society. Akriti started an academy “Lakshya”, with the support of her father.The motive behind opening Lakshya is to enable the young generation to channelize their energy on service of country. She is also working on girl education and there empowerment, drug addiction, save environment campaigns. Presently Akriti is working in IT Next Generation School where she is giving motivational lectures to students for future prospectus and to train them on army obstacles.