A team of six Indian Army mountaineers led by lt Colonel Ranveer Jamwal successfully scaled Mount Everest on Thursday morning. Concurrently, the lhotse summit team led by Major Nooruddin Ahmed is attempting to summit Mount lhotse, the fourth highest peak in the world at 8,501 metres.
The Indian Army climbers were among the initial lot of mountaineers to successfully climb Everest after a hiatus of two years as the peak was closed due to the devastation caused by the earthquake in Nepal last year.
Incidentally, the same team was at the Everest base camp last year for the expedition when the 7.9 earthquake struck Nepal on April 25. The team took part in rescue mission to bring out trapped mountaineers. Twenty two international climbers and local sherpas were killed in the avalanche triggered by the earthquake. However, the Indian team camp that was also in the path of the avalanche remained unharmed. The expedition was called off.
The 30-member Indian Army’s Everest expedition 2016 was flagged off by Vice Chief of Army Staff lt General MMS Rai on March 30. Five members of the team will now participate in the tough and intensive “Tenzing Hillary Everest Marathon” on May 29. It is considered to one of the toughest trail marathons in the world, Army officials said.
Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag congratulated the team for successfully climbing the world’s highest peak. Team leader Jamwal has the record of having led 17 people to the summit. He had earlier scaled the peak twice in 2012 and 2013.