Indian climbers abandon Everest ski record attempt
KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Heavy snowfall on Mount Everest forced an Indian border guards expedition to call off its attempt to climb the peak and set a record skiing down to the base camp, the team leader said on Wednesday.
Fifteen climbers of the 28-member team had reached 7,406 metres using the normal route to the 8,850 metre summit two weeks ago, expedition leader Harbhajan Singh told Reuters after returning from the mountain.
"There we got about six feet of snow accumulation and it was not possible to fix ropes," Singh said.
"Everybody reported it is risky. There is the danger of avalanche," he said. "So we abandoned the expedition and returned."
The expedition was sponsored by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, a federal police force that guards India's border with China, along with the army.
The expedition was also meant to highlight environmental issues on Everest that is littered with the trash left behind by climbers in the past.
It was the only team on Mount Everest from the Nepali side during the current climbing season that started in September. Everest can also be climbed from Tibet.
More than 3,600 people have reached the top of Mount Everest since it was first climbed by New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa in 1953.
(Reporting by Gopal Sharma) Continued...
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