1-Year-Old Sabahan Toddler Celebrates Her First Birthday Atop Nepal Mountain 4,130m High!

By Quinny Tan  •  12 Oct 2022 in News

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Amongst running jokes in Asian parenting, most of us can relate to the fact that they “let” us pick our future and career paths, but steer us towards the top 3 usual suspects – Medicine, Law and Engineering.

While this isn’t necessarily a case of that, I’d say it still shows where the parents’ interests lie.

A one-year-old toddler named Akshra Ragavendra is now the youngest person to ever reach Nepal’s Annapurna Base Camp (ABC), and on her birthday, no less!

Her parents, Ragavendra Gopalakrishnan and Sheena Prasannan, carried her all the way up to celebrate her first birthday. For context, the ABC stands at 4130 metres in height. That’s one way to stay on top of things.

“My husband and I are avid hikers, and our daughter has been on hikes with us since she was three weeks old. We wanted to do something different for her birthday,” said Sheena.

“We thought it would be a memorable experience and achievement for our family. We anticipated it would be difficult, but we took the challenge as we knew it would make us stronger as a couple,”

 

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A post shared by Sheena (@curlsonadventure)

Prior to the hike, they trained for five weeks in Kota Kinabalu with a 2kg baby carrier. Akshra had weighed 8kg at that point. Sheena said that she and her husband had taken turns climbing over two thousand steps to work on speed, stamina and muscle training.

Their climb started on July 21 and took them two days to reach the peak, and another 3 to make their way back down.

“Usually, this trail takes between eight and 10 days. However, we hiked extra long hours as we wanted to reach the peak on her birthday on July 23.

“Thankfully, our daughter did not suffer from altitude sickness. My maternal instincts told me she’d be okay. Akshra managed to adapt well at ABC.

 

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A post shared by Sheena (@curlsonadventure)

The couple never knew Akshra would be the youngest person in the world to reach ABC until they applied for their hiking permit in Kathmandu.

“An officer told us that she’d be the youngest if she made it. That served as a motivation for us. Along the way, the villagers were very supportive, as they had never seen a baby on the trail.

“Many hikers were shocked when they found out we had a baby in tow, thinking it was merely a backpack,” shared Sheena.

But there were various challenges involved in carrying a young child all the way up to ABC.

“Tantrums, hiking at a slower pace, heavier luggage and lesser sleep – those things come with backpacking with a baby. But if you love the outdoors and watching your little one see new things for the first time, you may find all that outweighs the complex parts.

 

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A post shared by RagaVendra (@ragavendra_g.k)

“It has been a priceless experience for us. ABC has always been a dream, but I never thought I’d be doing it with my infant,” Sheena added.

So, what do you think? Will Akshra grow up to be a fellow hiker like her parents, or end up as a doctor? Either way, I think this story is pretty legendary.