Woman on top, leads the team with little girls in tow

A DSP with

Haryana police

, Mamta Sodha found a way of integrating her personal ambition of mountaineering into the bigger celebration of women on International Women's Day, using a philanthropic cause. On Sunday, Sodha, who scaled Mount Everest in 2010 and was awarded Padma Shri in 2014, led a team of 40 young, orphaned girls to Karoh peak, the highest mountain of Haryana. "These girls were from Bal Sadan and Ashiana, Panchkula based orphanages," says Sodha, "They have never done anything like this before and were visibly excited."
In association with an

NGO

that works for preservation of nature and giving impetus to adventure sports, Sodha's decision to undertake this climb came from her belief in sports at large, as she says, "I believe that after this climb, these girls will experience more positive changes in their lives.

Trekking

and competitive sports promote all-round development of people."

Since Karoh peak is a "normal track", Sodha didn't feel the need to train these young girls in mountain climbing prior to the ascent. "All that they needed was some tips on how to climb, height to be scaled, precautions to look out for, dos and don'ts while climbing, and they were good to climb." Such was the enthusiasm in the girls that despite one of them experiencing motion sickness while travelling to the base of the peak, she didn't give up. "This girl surprised us all by turning out to be the most active on the peak," smiles Sodha, who has been climbing mountains since she was 20, "I guess that's the effect of nature on human beings."
For Sodha, this wasn't the first time on Karoh. She and her businessman husband, who is also passionate about mountaineering, had explored it on the first birthday of their son a few months ago. "It was both our birthdays- my son and I," says Sodha, who has scaled at least five peaks together with her husband, "And it also happened to be Haryana Day. So, we decided on doing something unique and celebrate on a mountain peak." Since her first climb that came in Mcleodganj in second year of graduation, Sodha has never stopped scaling mountains. "My inspiration was rather ordinary. I used to see this picture of a mountain in our house when I was in class VIII. And I was awe-struck," says Sodha who has represented Haryana police in expeditions to Mount Kilimanjaro (Africa) and Mount Elbrus (2012), the highest mountain in Europe.