Over 100 Indian mountaineers were on course to scale the world’s highest peak, Mount Everest, approaching through the South Col and south east ridge route in Nepal.

A message from Bengal’s mountaineer Chanda Gayen, who is busy moving from the base camp at 16,000 feet in Solo Khumbu, said that the climbers, majority of whom belong to the Indian Army, Border Security Force (BSF) and Seema Suraksha Bal (SSB), were keeping well.

Chanda said that they had completed their first phase of acclimatisation, during which they went up to Camp II at 22,000ft and had come down to base for a brief recuperation.

In the second phase, they would move up to Camp III and would return to base camp again, before making their bid for the summit from camp four at South Col at 26,000ft during the third week of May.