We saw dead bodies on Mount Everest

Guntala Thirupati Reddy, 23-year-old Vikarabad native, recently made news for scaling the highest peak in the world despite coming from a financially weak background. He sought funds from various philanthropists and organisations to scale Mt Everest and his father also supported his expedition by mortgaging their land and acquiring money for the journey.

1. Craze for scaling highest peak not deterred by tragic happenings
2. Weather conditions for trekking good only for a couple of days, and, hence, the rush
3. Nepal issued as many as 380 permits, which resulted in overcrowding atop the mountain
4. Several stranded in freezing temperatures for hours

"The base camp is located at 5,000 meters," explains Thirupati, offering an insight into his journey. "After that, we had five camps in between to reach the peak. Tukaram and I travelled along with some sherpas," he said.

Thirupathi and his companions traveled from Nepal, from the south side of the peak. "We managed to trek 7,4000 meters without oxygen masks," he said, "It depends on one's fitness and endurance. Some people opt for oxygen at 6,000 meters too." Despite the dangerous trail, Thirupathi and his companions had managed to reach the summit safely.

On their way back, however, the group was caught up in a 'traffic jam.' Due to over-crowding of mountaineers on the peak, a lot of people had to wait hours to go back and forth from the summit. "We had to wait almost 3 hours in below 30 degrees Celsius to trek back down," says Thirupati, recalling his journey.

"It was very hard and it is necessary to always keep moving in such freezing temperatures because your limbs might freeze up. But only one person could go at a time so we had to wait for our turn." Thirupati and his company reached the base camp at around 8'o clock in the evening of 22 May.

"We saw at least 4 bodies near camp 4 and 5 but there was nothing we could do. We had to keep going," says Thirupati, recalling the heart-breaking scenes he had seen on the way down.

The craze for scaling Mt Everest, however, doesn't seem to be dying down anytime soon. "Everyone wants to scale Everest and because the weather conditions for trekking are good only for a couple of days and everyone goes at the same time," says Thirupati, predicting that the number of climbers will only go up every year.

According to a report, as many as 380 permits were issued by the Nepal government to scale Everest and this over-crowding is being blamed for the deaths. Meanwhile, Thirupati Reddy is half-way through his dream of scaling all seven highest peaks in the world. He has scaled three so far, i.e, Mt Everest, Mt Kilimanjaro and Mt Kosciusko.