Eighteen-year-old Krushnaa Patil has an addiction she can never shake off. But that has taken her to great heights and she is yearning to go higher. Her passion is, in fact, conquering heights.

She became India's youngest mountaineer to scale Mount Satopanth (7,075 metre above sea level) in the Gangotri glacier. Krushnaa was the only one from Maharashtra in the team of 28 mountaineers from the National Institute of Mountaineering (NIM) which scaled the peak in September.

After the expedition, Krushnaa returned to Pune just a fortnight back.

Describing her “once-in-a-lifetime” experience, Krushnaa said it was a full moon night, when they started the climb at 7 pm, on September 13.

“The sky was clear. But the wind was blowing fast, making the climb tough. Moreover, as it had snowed a day earlier, snow particles being swirled around by the wind rudely hit our faces. The average temperature during the entire climb was between minus 30 and minus 35 degree Celsius,” she said.

The young mountaineer adds that Satopanth is a peak that needs immense technical knowledge and skills to be conquered.

When the team reached camp one, it was half-past midnight. They spent two hours making tea, because of the low atmospheric pressure. The team reached the peak at 12 noon and immediately began the descend, to reach camp one at 5 pm. Just before scaling Satopanth, the team leader called up Krushnaa's mother Ashwini and asked her if she was prepared to never again see her only daughter. “That would not happen. I am sure my daughter will be able to do it,” her mother had said.

The team went on to create a few records. The climbers hit the summit directly from camp one and were back in 22 hours, it was the highest number in a team to successfully climb Mount Satopanth, they removed one tonne garbage from Gangotri glacier and planted 200 Bhojpatra trees during the expedition. The team has sets its sights higher. The expedition to Mount Satopanthwas was a warm up for the Mount Everest climb scheduled in March 2009.

“I was nervous as was the least experienced in the team. There were people who had climbed Mount Everest twice and others were trained rigorously for a month before the summit,”

Krushnaa said.

She, however, went for the summit after completing the advanced mountaineering course from NIM in early 2008. “Earlier, I had done an adventure course in 2005, followed by a basic mountaineering course in 2006,” she said. Krushnaa had been visiting the Himalayas and other adventure camps since she was in Class III. “My parents accompanied me to the Himalayas and it is with their support that I was able to create this record,” she said.

After completing her HSC in 2007, Krushnaa enrolled for external BA with Pune University and went to Bangalore’s Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts to pursue diploma in Indian contemporary dance. She is off on a skiing course in January, as part of the preparations for the Everest climb. “If I get a chance to successfully complete the expedition, I would be the youngest Indian to reach Mount Everest,”