Proud Moment: First Vegan from India to Successfully Climb to Mt. Everest

Amidst the gloomy and sad death news continuously coming from Mt. Everest expedition in this season (check my last week's post here) , here comes a great uplifting news from the highest point in the world. India's celebrated vegan mountaineer Kuntal Joisher has returned from his successful climb to Mt. Everest on 23rd May early morning.

With this, Kuntal has accomplished following feats:

• The first vegan in the world to summit Mt. Everest
• The first person in the world who summitted Mount Everest from both north and south side on a vegan diet

Kuntal Joisher is a vegan since 2002. He had successfully summitted the highest peak in 2016 as well. Although everything in his 2016 expedition was vegan except the one-piece suit he was wearing. He was trying for this expedition since 2014 and had approached several well known companies like North Face, Mountain Hardwear, Rab etc. to make a synthetic one piece suit for his Everest expedition. But his request was turned down by all citing it as an impossible task. Acording to them, the technology to replace down just does not exist for such expeditions.

But Kuntal didn't accept it and tried to make his own synthetic suit using Primaloft material. Unfortunately, it was too bulky and heavy to carry. So he had to give up the idea and had to use the down suit in his 2016 climb. However, his 2016 climb is fondly remembered as the first successful Mt. Everest climb in the world on a 100% vegan diet.

_{Kuntal Joisher on Mt. Everest on 23 May, 2019 morning}

Being a dedicated animal activist and a vegan mountaineer, Kuntal wanted to do it without the need for a down suit. Fortunately, people at Save The Duck agreed to make a synthetic suit for him. He had tested this suit in his Lhotse expedition which is also over 8000m.

Thus this year, he took this suit to the Mt. Everest (from the China side). And it wasn't any easy. In Kuntal's own words:

This expedition was by far the coldest, windiest, toughest and technically most challenging thing I have ever done in my life. And I am glad that my Vegan food and gear supported and shined through!

Aside that, there is always a lot of fear involved when something is being done the very first time. People are quick to attribute any mishappening to the infeasibility of veganism. I'd like to quote Kuntal's feelings about this in his own words:

First ever 100% Vegan ascent of Mt. Everest without any frostbite, evacuation and of course most important - "Staying alive". We had been reading about the crazy number of frostbite and deaths on Everest this season. I thought - imagine if I got frostbite. People would say - "Your synthetic socks were not good enough", "lack of iron in your diet made you hypothermic!". Imagine if I died. People would say - "Vegan dies climbing Everest while trying to prove Vegans can do anything". Not that I care about people, but I personally wanted to make a statement that the tallest and toughest mountain in the world can be climbed without eating or wearing animals, and that it can be very much be done in a safe fashion.

I'm glad, he returned accomplishing this feat strong and healthy. He has made India proud. He has made whole vegan community proud and proved an important point:

Animal products are not a necessity for humans

_{All photographs courtesy: Kuntal Joisher's Facebook profile}