Chhanda Gayen is a Female mountaineer from West Bengal who conquered Mount Everest in 2013. She is renowned as the world record holder for conquering both Mount Everest and Mt. Lhotse (20 May 2013) in same expedition.
Chhanda Gayen is first Bengali woman to conquer Mount Everest
Born on 9 July 1979, Chhanda was inspired by her mother, Jaya Gayen, a hobby trekker. Chhanda was truly light weight with extraordinary body fitness. She started with a basic rock climbing training from institute of exploration (1998). Besides of different small trekking and climbing expeditions, she attended many relevant training programs of mountaineering. She joined at rock climbing standard course from Sushunia, organized by Gorabazar Baharampukur town club in 2005. In 2006, she completed basic Mountaineering courses from HMI (Darjeeling) with grade A and conjointly done advanced mountaineering training course from HMI, with grade A. She further attended Alpine Climbing Camp 2007 arranged by Nehru Institute of Mountaineering. She prepared herself with a deep groundwork for being mountaineering instructor through MOI from HMI. She additionally attended an adventureTrekking camp at 2012, organized by Himalayan Nature and Adventure foundation.
As a National Cadet, she participated in All India Sikkim trek. arranged by NCC. In 2007, she touched summit point of Mount Fluted. Next year, in 2008 she had reached the vertex of both Mount Yogin 1 and Mount Yogin 3 which was admitted as Indian record of completing this two peaks at same day by same women members. Her next summit, at Mount Gangotri was in 2009. She had participated in 17 IMS East Zone sports Climbing competitions in 2011. In the same year she reached to the zenith of Mount Manirang. She actualized her dream achievement to summit both in Mount Everest and Mount Lhotse in same expedition in the year, 2013, which is admitted as world record.
Chhanda is the second child of businessman Pashupati Gayen, who encouraged her to include several extracurricular activities like swimming, kabaddi, NCC, martial arts, mountaineering, adventure sports, and singing in her life. As a very versatile learner, she has demonstrated skill at each sport she has adopted, whether individual or team activities.
She was a gold medalist in district level swimming and runner up in district level kabaddi at beginning of her sports career. She is a trained martial artist for many years. She won Bengal championship in Taekwondo Fin category in 1993 & 1994, Received Black belt in Taekwondo, won open state karate championship in 2002. Also she is a National Medalist in Taekwondo Championship 2003 Fin Category. In 2006 she became winner again in open karate state championship. She was awarded as “Sera Avishkar” in Sera Bangali 2013 from ABP Ananda .