Lovely Das (first from left) with her teammates atop Mt Kilimanjaro

A Calcutta-based mountaineer has overcome her humble background to scale the highest peak in Africa.

A chance mention of her name to mountaineer Bachendri Pal put 33-year-old Lovely Das in the team for the Mt Kilimanjaro expedition. However, the cost of the trip — Rs 16 lakh for 10 members — was beyond the reach of Lovely, who lost her father as an infant and has worked to support her family since Class VIII.

The mountaineer, who is also a three-time national champion in yoga, knows that financial constraints can cripple the most able. In 1992, despite being “chosen as one of the five Indian civilians for an army expedition to the Everest base camp, organised by National Geographic”, she could not make it because of “the expenditure involved”.

This time, Tata Steel Adventure Foundation came to the rescue, providing Lovely the funds. On June 23, she headed for north-east Tanzania as the sole member from Bengal in the “first all-women Indian mountaineering expedition” to the 19,335-ft high peak.

After a two-day trek through a dense jungle and a day of rock climbing, it was time for the final leg of the expedition that would take the 10 women, including an African mountaineer, to the icy tip of the volcanic mountain. Following the Machame route, they reached the top around 8.20am on June 29.

“We had to march overnight for about nine hours. For the last hour and a half we had to move through ice, at -22 degree Celsius temperature,” says Lovely.

“It was so cold at the top that we could not feel our hands. One of our members fell ill,” she adds.

The ascent was among the most notable in the mountaineering career of Lovely, who lives in Bowbazar with her husband, also a climber.

Last October, she was part of the Indian Mountaineering Foundation-organised expedition to Mt Menthosa in Himachal Pradesh.

Her skill as a professional physiotherapist also came in handy during the African expedition, says Pal, who wants more spunky women like Lovely to take to mountaineering.