Mount Vinson and South Pole She started the Antarctica expedition on 5 January 2016 from Delhi to Punta Arenas in Chile via Santiago. She was part of a ten-member expedition team, with other members being from the USA, Canada, South Africa, the U.K., and Australia. At Mount Vinson Massif in Antarctica, her skills in snow craft and pulling her 30 kg sledge on the ice was put to test in the freezing environment of the south pole. The temperature went down to -40 degrees, and at its worst the wind was about 100–120 km per hour.. She reached the union glacier in Antarctica from Puenta Arenas in Chile and started her climb. The team was lucky as they could get a window of climb on their first day of reaching the advanced base camp. They were expected to summit around 23 January but could do so 5 days earlier. On 17 January at 11 pm India Time and 2 pm local time she summited Mount Vinson Massif (about 17,000 feet). Surviving in the icy winds above 100 km per hour and -40 degree temperature took a toll on her, as she lost more than 5 kg of weight and had mild frostbite. Asia - Mount Everest The summit to Everest even involves immense risk to life, as year after year, there has been numerous deaths and loss of limbs due to frostbite. The chief minister of Uttar Pradesh sanctioned financial support for her Mount Everest expedition. She made her first attempt at climbing Mount Everest in April–May 2014, but due to a major avalanche (16 sherpas lost their lives) on Everest, all expeditions were called off by the Nepal government. She went for the Mount Everest expedition on 5 April 2015 to Kathmandu. From there she started her trek to the Northside Base camp, China. Unlike her 2014 attempt at climbing Everest, she planned to first scale the Everest from north side and then attempt from the south side in Nepal. No Indian woman has achieved this feat in the same year. The Everest mission had to be called off due to the high-intensity earthquake in Nepal which caused large scale disaster in Nepal and parts of China. Kumar said that watching Everest every day (during her climb up to 25,000 feet this year, before the quake hit) emboldened her to resolve to make it to the top one day.