Army officers undertake expedition to Mount Manaslu

After a successful ski expedition to Antarctica, Indian Army soldiers will now try to scale the eighth highest mountain peak Mount Manaslu in Nepal with an 18-member army team setting out on the mountaineering expedition on Tuesday.

After a successful ski expedition to Antarctica, Indian Army soldiers will now try to scale the eighth highest mountain peak Mount Manaslu in Nepal with an 18-member army team setting out on the mountaineering expedition on Tuesday.

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"An 18-member team from the Indian Army would attempt to scale the 8,163 metres high Mount Manaslu between March and June. The expedition team would reach Kathmandu on March 24," an Army spokesman said on Tuesday.

The expedition, flagged off by Deputy Chief of Army Staff Lt General V S Tonk, would be led by Colonel Ajay Kothiyal- a Kirti Chakra (KC) and Shaurya Chakra (SC) winner.

"Starting from Kathmandu, the team will reach the base camp at the height of 17,900 feet. Four camps will be established ahead of the base camp and the members will attempt the summit between May 14 and 20," he added.

Army began scaling the all open mountain peaks above 8000 meters after it successfully summited the Mount Everest in 2001.

So far, different mountaineering teams of Indian army have climbed six out of the nine 8000 meter high peaks. Mount Manaslu is the eighth highest peak in the category of 8000 meter high peaks in the world.