Age is just a number for this woman mountaineer

At the age of 46, on December 31, 2011, Sangeeta Sindhi Bahl did something extraordinary.

She scaled her first peak, Mount Kilimanjaro (19,341 feet), the highest mountain in Africa.

Then she climbed Mount Ebrus (18,500 feet), the highest peak in Europe, in July 2013 and the 16,000-foot high Mount Vinson in Antarctica in January 2014.

When climbing Mount McKinley (20,310 feet) in North America, Sangeeta suffered a bad knee injury and had to be evacuated immediately. That failure only cemented her resolve.

At 51, she is training to climb Mount McKinley (now known as Mount Denali) again.

 Away from the mountains, Sangeeta Sindhi Bahl runs an image consulting business, a hands-on mother to a teenager and a doting wife.

She is also a mountaineer who nurtures a dream: To climb the Seven Summits and become the oldest Indian woman to do so.

(The Seven Summits -- Mount Everest in Asia, Mount Aconcagua in South America, Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Elbrus, Mount Vinson in the Antarctic and Mount Carstensz in Australia -- are the highest peaks on the seven continents.)

Sangeeta's life is a testament to her motto: 'Nothing is impossible'.

IMAGE: Sangeeta takes a break at Mount McKinley.

"At the end of the day, it's all about the mind," she says. "When you are exhausted and want to give up, your mind should push you to keep going. I keep telling myself I will do it. I will not give up. I can do it."

Before she decided to give Ankur company, Sangeeta had never considered climbing a mountain. No one in her family was a mountaineer. Post the first climb, her passion for climbing unfolded thanks to the encouragement she received from friends.

"My mother knows of the dangers involved and often tells me to be careful. My father is oblivious. He doesn't really understand the risk."

IMAGE: Sangeeta at Uhuru Peak, Mount Kilimanjaro.

When a mountain guide told her she was never going to climb again, she was thrown off guard. "I had dreamt of climbing the Seven Summits. I said to myself, 'My God! My life is finished'."

Sangeeta had to undergo knee surgery when she returned to India. "Post surgery, I was given a walking stick. Using it was brutal for my self-esteem. I looked at it and said, 'This is not going to be a hindrance in my life because I won't let this happen to me'. Within a week of the surgery, I threw the stick away. I continued walking with a limp and would religiously go for all my physiotherapy sessions."

Sangeeta trains for two hours for six days a week. Four days are dedicated to gym training and she does weights for two days. "I do weights outdoors by climbing stairs and walking with a backpack. I keep increasing the backpack's weight every day."