In contrast to the expedition style, the “Alpine style” of climbing means the mountaineers will carry their food, shelter and equipment. All this without taking any help from high altitude porters or Sherpas, and will not use oxygen cylinders during their climb.
Led by Subrata Chakrabarty, the expedition team comprises Debraj Dutta, medical officer Sushanta Bhattacharya, Jayanta Chattopadhyay, Gautam Saha, Rupendra Sen, Rudraprasad Haldar and Subhashish Roy.
The team will reach Darcha, around 280 km from Manali by a jeep and then begin its journey on foot. The mountaineers will set up their base camp at Chumi-mak-po.
“The route has not been mapped till now. We have learnt that there is an ice slope on the way,” said team leader Chakrabarty.
Scaling the peak is not merely an expedition for the undaunted mountaineers. On their way up, they will carry out a study of glaciers, collect rock samples and specimens of flora and fauna. The rock samples will be given to the Ballygunge Science College.
Except for the 23-year-old Rudra Prasad Haldar, who is on his maiden expedition, most of the other team members were part of the earlier expeditions to Neelkantha peak and Mount Kamath.
While medical officer Sushanta has scaled Mt Everest twice, team leader Subrata has made it to both the Guiness Book of World Records and the Limca Book of Records for touring India on the monowheel.
The expedition was flagged off by German Consul-General Gunter Wehrmann at the Princep Ghat in Kolkata.