Shimla, May 23: Chhonzin Angmo, a tribal woman from a remote village in Himachal Pradesh’s Kinnaur district, suffers from total blindness but she has never let her visual impairment stand in the way of her dreams.
Angmo, who idolises Hellen Keller, believes deeply in her words of wisdom — “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” On Monday, she scripted history by becoming the first visually-impaired woman from India and the fifth such person in the world to scale Mt Everest, planting the Tricolour on Earth’s highest mountain.
Born in the remote Chango village along the India-Tibet border, Angmo lost her sight when she was eight years old. She still went on to earn her graduation and masters degrees from Miranda House under the University of Delhi. At present, she works with the Union Bank of India as a customer service associate in Delhi.
Her father Amar Chand told PTI on Friday, “My daughter has made me proud and we all are very happy about her achievement. However, we do not know the exact details yet and are waiting for her return.” The news of Angmo scaling the world’s highest peak also brought cheer among locals of her village.
Yamchin, her relative, said Angmo was bold and determined since childhood.
Her feat has brought happiness to the entire village, she said.
Angmo’s journey may have been full of challenges but she turned every challenge into an opportunity.
“My story has just begun, my blindness is not my weakness but my strength,” she had earlier said.
“Climbing mountain peaks has been my childhood dream but financial constraints were a big challenge. Now I will embark on scaling all the left-out peaks,” she had said.
In October 2024, Angmo became the first visually-impaired Indian woman to complete a trek to the Everest base camp, located at an altitude of 5,364 metres.
She has scaled Mt Kang Yatsae 2 (6,250 metres) in Ladakh and was also a member of the Divyang expedition team that scaled an unnamed peak at an altitude of about 6,000 metres in the Union Territory.
Her feats even found mention in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Mann ki Baat” radio broadcast as he recognised and praised her team.
With a passion for sports, Angmo won a gold medal in swimming at the state level and participated in a national-level judo championship. She has two bronze medals from national-level marathon events and participated in the Delhi Marathon three times, as well as the Pink Marathon and the Delhi Vedanta Marathon. She also played football at the zonal and the national levels.
In order to achieve her dream of scaling mountain peaks, Angmo completed a basic mountaineering course from the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Mountaineering and Allied Sports in 2016 and was adjudged the best trainee.
An adventurer by heart, she cycled from Manali to Khardung La, one of the world’s highest motorable roads at an altitude of 18,000 feet (about 5486 metres), in 10 days, braving extreme temperatures, in 2018; embarked on a cycling expedition through the Nilgiris region across three states in just six days in 2019; and completed the seven-day cycling expedition from Manali to Kalpa across the Spiti Valley and Kinnaur last July.
She was also the only woman mountaineer of the team of people with disabilities that scaled the Siachen Glacier, the world’s highest battlefield, in 2021 under Operation Blue Freedom and set a New World Record.
She received the Sarvshresth Divyangjan National Award for the Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities last year from President Droupadi Murmu. She is also a recipient of the NAB Madhu Sharma Young Achiever Award, International Day of Persons with Disabilities Award from the National Association for the Blind in Delhi, and the Cavinkare Ability Mastery Awards.
