Savita Kanswal: Uttarakhand's “Mountain Girl”

Savita Kanswal's story is one of the most remarkable in recent Indian mountaineering history a young woman from a modest farming family who defied social pressure and financial hardship to set a national mountaineering record, only to lose her life a few months later while doing the work she loved most: training the next generation of Indian climbers.

Savita Kanswal was born around 1996 in Lonthru (also spelled Lothru), a remote village in the Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand, into a lower middle class farming family. Her father, Radheshyam Kanswal, worked the land, while her mother, Kamleshwari Devi, managed the household. Savita was the youngest of four daughters, and in a conservative, patriarchal community, her family faced social pity and pressure for having no sons something Savita later said only strengthened her resolve to prove people wrong.

Her childhood was shaped by hardship: she juggled household and farm responsibilities alongside her schooling, walking several kilometres through hilly terrain each day just to reach school. It was there, through a school adventure course, that she had her first real exposure to mountaineering an experience that would ultimately reshape the entire course of her life.

In 2013, Kanswal completed both her basic and advanced mountaineering courses at the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering (NIM) in Uttarkashi, one of India's most respected mountaineering institutions. To fund her growing passion, she took on work in a local café alongside farm labour, all while continuing to train a period she later described candidly, saying that once she realised a career in mountaineering was possible, she simply knew she had to pursue it.

Her dedication paid off steadily. She went on to summit five peaks across India, including Trisul, before achieving a major breakthrough in 2021: becoming the first woman from Uttarakhand, and only the second Indian woman overall, to summit Mount Lhotse (8,516m), the world's fourth highest peak.

Kanswal's defining achievement came in May 2022. With her expedition partly funded by government sponsorship worth around ₹21 lakh, she recognised it as a rare, once in a lifetime opportunity and pushed forward despite the risks. On 12 May 2022, she reached the summit of Mount Everest (8,848m), completing the climb in four rotations as most mountaineers do.

Remarkably, just 16 days later, on 28 May 2022, she summited Mount Makalu (8,485m), the world's fifth highest peak making her the first Indian woman in history to climb both Everest and Makalu within such a short span, a feat that set a national women's record and drew widespread admiration across the Indian mountaineering community. In a message shared after her Everest climb, she thanked her home region of Uttarkashi for its blessings in helping her reach the world's highest point.

Following her historic climbs, Kanswal took up a role as a guest instructor at the very institute that had trained her, the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, Uttarkashi. NIM's principal, Colonel Amit Bisht, later described her as one of the institute's finest instructors ambitious, courageous, and deeply committed to helping the next generation of climbers fulfil their own mountaineering dreams.

On the morning of 4 October 2022, a large group of NIM trainees and instructors 34 students, 7 instructors, and a medical assistant were descending from the summit of Draupadi Ka Danda-II (5,670m), a peak in the Gangotri range of the Garhwal Himalayas, as part of NIM's Advanced Mountaineering Course. At around 8:45 AM, a massive avalanche struck the group without warning.

Savita Kanswal was one of the instructors accompanying the team and was among those killed. The remote location roughly 22 km from the nearest road head, with no network connectivity made rescue efforts extremely difficult. The Indian Air Force, State Disaster Response Force, and Indo Tibetan Border Police were all mobilised, though poor weather repeatedly hampered search operations over the following days.

The Draupadi Ka Danda-II avalanche became one of the deadliest mountaineering accidents in Indian history, with a final confirmed death toll of 29 among the highest ever recorded in an Indian Himalayan training accident. Rescue and recovery operations stretched on for an extended period, with one climber's body only recovered over a year after the incident.

Among the Uttarakhand based mountaineers who lost their lives were Savita Kanswal, Naumi Rawat (a fellow NIM instructor), Ajay Bisht, Satish Rawat, Kapil Panwar, Vinay Panwar, Santosh Kukreti, Rahul Panwar, Shubham Sarangi, Narendra Singh, and Siddharth Khanduri. In tribute, NIM announced plans to have its mountaineers climb 11 previously unclimbed peaks in the Garhwal Himalaya and name each one after a deceased mountaineer from the state.

Note: Death toll figures were revised upward over time as search and recovery operations continued into 2023 and 2024; the figure of 29 reflects the most recent confirmed total.

• January 2024: Posthumously awarded the Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award, India's highest honour in adventure sports.
• December 2024: Posthumously awarded the Gold Medal Award by the Indian Mountaineering Foundation (IMF).
• 2024–present: Selected as one of 11 mountaineers to be honoured through NIM's initiative naming unclimbed Garhwal Himalaya peaks after the avalanche's Uttarakhand victims.

Savita Kanswal's short but extraordinary life continues to be honoured across Uttarakhand. She has since been remembered at community events such as the Ghasyari Utsav in Matholi village, an annual festival she had helped support in its inaugural year, which now pays tribute to her memory as part of its programme celebrating women's empowerment and local tourism in Uttarkashi district.

She is widely regarded as:

• The first Indian woman to summit Mount Everest and Mount Makalu within 16 days, a national record
• The first woman from Uttarakhand, and second from India, to summit Mount Lhotse
• A symbol of resilience for young women in Uttarakhand's hill villages, having overcome poverty and patriarchal pressure to build a mountaineering career
• One of the finest instructors NIM Uttarkashi has produced, remembered for her dedication to training future climbers

Savita Kanswal followed the path of Indian mountaineering pioneers like Bachendri Pal, whose historic Everest summit inspired generations of women climbers in India.

Savita Kanswal's journey, cut tragically short, remains a defining story of courage in Indian mountaineering a reminder of both the extraordinary heights her generation of climbers reached, and the very real dangers that come with training in the high Himalaya.