A daring bid to ski down the 8,848-metre high Mount Everest is set to start on March 23 with a 28-member team of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) commencing a two-month-long expedition from New Delhi.

Eight of these 28 men will attempt skiing down Everest sometime in mid-May after climbing it from the north side (in China), a route considered to be much more challenging than the south side route from Nepal. The mountaineers are likely to take a month to climb the peak.

The ITBP recently procured sophisticated Japanese helmet-mounted cameras to capture the journey of its men climbing the peak and then taking a shot at the world record by skiing down. Two of its men will wear these cameras as the 8-member group begins the descent skiing.

The mountaineers will carry satellite phones since the Chinese government has not allowed them to carry their own communication equipment, citing security reasons. The team will first go to Nepal and then cross over to China via the Friendship Bridge on the Nepal-China Border.

All the 17 attempts to ski down the mountain have failed for some reason or the other, with a European mountaineer coming close to achieving the feat.

The ITBP team, led by DIG Harbhajan Singh, has trained over the past few months at the force’s Mountaineering and Skiing Institute in Auli in Uttarakhand.

As many as 26 ITBP personnel have climbed Mount Everest till date.