New Delhi: A team of mountaineers from the
IAF will try to scale Mount Aconcagua, the highest peak in
South America, from tomorrow, the third attempt in their
effort to set a record of conquering seven peaks in seven
different continents.
Under Mission Seven Summits, as the adventure expedition
is called, the 6,962-metre (22,841-feet) peak, the highest
outside Asia, is expected to be scaled before March 2, an IAF
spokesperson said.
The five ace IAF mountaineers led by Wg Cdr R C Tripathi
were flagged off by Air Officer-in-charge (Administration) Air
Marshal J N Burma at the Air headquarters here today.
The other members of the team were Wg Cdr Jai Kishan, Sqn
Ldr Namit Rawat, JWO Suresh Pal and JWO NR Choudhary.
Choudhary was part of an IAF team that scaled 8,848-metre
Mt Everest in 2005, apart from Tripathi.
The team had earlier also scaled Mt Carstensz Pyramid at
4,884 metres, the highest mountain in Australasia's New Guinea
in February last year.
The remaining four peaks to be attempted this year
include Mt McKinley (North America) in May, Mt Elbrus (Europe)
and Mt Kilimanjaro (Africa) in August and Mt Vinson Massif
(Antartica) in December 2010.
PTI
First Published: Thursday, February 11, 2010, 00:01