Indian woman makes history with her climb up sacred mountain

Dhanya Sanal.
(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/The Logical Indian)

For the first time, a woman has climbed the summit of Agasthyakoodam, a sacred mountain in India.

Before, only men could scale the peak; there is an statue of a Hindu sage on the mountain, and local tribespeople believe women should not go near it because he was celibate, BBC News reports. In November, a court ruled that women could climb the mountain, and the first to sign up was 38-year-old Dhanya Sanal. She reached the top on Jan. 14

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.