Six-member Indian team makes first Everest summit of season
KATHMANDU : Six Indian climbers reached the top of Mount Everest on Saturday, the first group to summit the world’s highest peak this climbing season.
The Indian team reached the peak from the northern Tibet side of the mountain on Saturday morning, with the first climber summiting at 8:20am (0020 GMT) and the rest of the group following shortly after.
“Six members from our team reached the summit this morning, the first of the season,” Satish Kumar from Transcend Adventures, the operators organising the climb, said. Suresh Babu, Durga Rao Kunja, Bharat Thammineni, Krishna Rao Vooyaka, Satya Rao Kare and Nagaraju Sundarana — along with the Sherpas — reached the peak from the northern Tibetan side.
Sundarana, a marathon runner hailing from Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh, was the first India climber to reach the peak, according to Transcend Adventures’ Facebook page. His parents are day labourers.
The busy spring climbing season on Everest runs from late April to May when a narrow window of good weather opens allowing climbers to reach the top.
But so far high winds, fresh snowfall and unusually cold temperatures have forced most teams to delay their summit attempts. Nearly 750 climbers are waiting to ascend the 8,850-metre (29,035-foot) peak from the Nepal side, and another 300 on the Tibet side. On the busier south side, a team of highly skilled rope fixers are waiting for a period of good weather to lay the ropes to the summit.