Mountaineering In India: The first record of Indians being initiated into mountaineering dates to 1942, when teachers from Doon School took their students into the Arwa Valley, above Badrinath. Later, encouragement from the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, saw the birth of mountaineering in Independent India. In 1950, an ascent of Bandarpoonch (Garhwal) was attempted, and this was followed in 1951 by an attempt on Trishul – the first time any Indian team had successfully scaled a 7000m peak. The Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling was established in 1954, a year after the ascent of Everest, and soon after, in 1955, Indian teams climbed Kamet, in the Garhwal Himalayas. Cho Oyu (on the Tibet-Nepal border) was the first 8000m peak to be climbed by Indians (1958), followed by Nanda Kot (Pithoragarh, Uttarakhand) and Chaukhamba (a massif in the Gangotri group of the Garhwal Himalayas), both in 1959. The sixties saw mountaineering in the country take firm roots. Mountaineering institutes in Sikkim and Manali were established in 1960 and 1961 respectively. Meanwhile, Annapurna II, III and IV were attempted by Indians in 1960 as part of joint expeditions. In addition, there were a couple of remarkable Indian expeditions to Everest in 1960 and 1962, both reaching very close to the summit. The first scaling of Everest by an Indian took place in 1965, when nine mountaineers conquered the mighty mountain – a record which held for 17 long years.The Indian Mountaineering Foundation came into existence in 1961, while the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering was established in Uttarkashi, in the Garhwal Himalayas, in 1965.