Ground Report

After two failures, mountaineer Kalpana Dash has finally made it. The 38-year-old Oriya woman from small town Dhenkanal has become the first woman mountaineer from the state to successfully scale Mount Everest. According to Kalpana’s family sources and information received from Arun Trek and Expedition Training, Nepal, Kalpana successfully reached the peak of the mountain 11.30 am on Wednesday by covering 8.848 metres from the base camp. Undeterred by financial constraints, the adventurous Kalpana was determined to scale Everest and had made two abortive attempts earlier in 2004 and 2006