A 30-member team of mountaineers, including 14 women, pooled from across northeast India by the North East Adventure Foundation left for Pahalgam in Kashmir to undertake first of the three pre-Everest expeditions.
The expeditions are being held ahead of the first-ever organised Everest expedition from the northeast, slated for 2011.
A spokesman of North East Adventure Foundation informed that veteran mountaineer and member of Governing Council of Indian Mountaineering Federation, Nesim Akhtar will lead the Everest expedition. Renowned mountaineer Col Neeraj Rana of Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling, and senior mountaineer and TV journalist Pranoy Bardoloi will aid her.
As part of the first pre-Everest expedition, the 30-member team -- which left for Pahalgam on Thursday morning -- will attempt to scale the Kolahai peak in Kashmir after undergoing training at the Indian Army-run Jawahar Institute of Mountaineering in Pahalgam.
Nesim informed that the final team of 15 tested mountaineers for the main Everest expedition will be chosen from the participants at the three pre-Everest expeditions, of which two will be undertaken this year and the third one in 2010. The pre-Everest expedition team includes 14 young women from different states of the region.
The team includes Kunzang Gyatso Bhutia from Sikkim who scaled the Everest on May 22 last year. He exuded confidence that the first expedition from the northeast to Mount Everest would be successful.
"It is an opportunity for talented mountaineers from the region to prove their mettle," he said.
So far, not a single Mount Everest Expedition has been undertaken from the region, basically due to financial crunch. Around Rs 45 lakh is required for booking of an expedition to the Everest.
"The state governments in the region, unlike their counterparts in the rest of the country, hardly provide assistance for mountaineering expeditions," a source in North East Adventure Forum said.
