Everest has been climbed thousands of times. There are mountains in Ladakh above six thousand metres that, until last month, nobody had stood on at all — and the reason is not that they are harder. It is that nobody had gone.
On 25 September 2026, Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh flagged in the First Ascent Expedition at Kartavya Bhavan-2, New Delhi, after a team of 20 climbers summited 20 previously unclimbed peaks above 6,000 metres in Ladakh in 23 days. These were the first recorded summits of peaks in the Chamser-Lungser, Gyama Nala and Chokula areas of the Ladakh Range. The team was from the National Institute of Mountaineering and Adventure Sports (NIMAS), Dirang, led by Col Ranveer Singh Jamwal. Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh was present.
What a "first ascent" actually means
The term has a precise meaning in mountaineering, and it is worth stating because it explains the achievement.
A first ascent is the first documented successful climb of a peak by any route. Everything after it — a second ascent, a new route, a first winter ascent, a first solo — is a different and separately recorded category. The first ascent is the one that establishes that the mountain can be climbed at all.
The difficulty is not only physical. A first ascent means climbing without the accumulated knowledge every subsequent party inherits: no route description, no photographs of the upper section, no record of where the rockfall comes down or which couloir holds snow into September, no fixed rope left by anyone, no reliable record of where a camp can safely be placed. The party must read the mountain as it goes, and it must carry the margin for being wrong.
Why unclimbed 6,000-metre peaks still exist
This is the part worth explaining, because it sounds implausible until the reasons are laid out.
There are a great many of them. The Himalaya, Karakoram and the ranges of Ladakh contain an enormous number of peaks above 6,000 metres — far more than have names, let alone ascents. Climbing attention concentrates on a small set of famous summits.
Remoteness. The approach matters as much as the climb. A peak that requires a week of travel from the nearest road, at altitude, carrying everything, is a far larger undertaking than its height suggests. The areas named here sit in the high, arid country of eastern Ladakh, where the approaches are long and the logistics unforgiving.
Access and permission. Much of this terrain lies close to sensitive frontiers and has not been generally open to expeditions. Peaks become climbable when they become permitted, and the opening of Himalayan peaks for mountaineering is a policy decision as much as an administrative one.
No prestige. An unnamed 6,100-metre peak offers no reputational return to a commercial expedition. The mountains that attract paying clients are the ones with names people recognise. Unclimbed peaks are, almost by definition, the ones nobody has had a reason to climb.
That last point is why an institutional expedition matters here. A body like NIMAS can mount an expedition whose purpose is exploration and training rather than a summit photograph, and can spend twenty-three days working systematically through an area rather than committing everything to one famous objective.
The altitude problem, briefly
Above about 5,500 metres the atmospheric pressure is roughly half that at sea level. The proportion of oxygen in the air does not change — it stays about 21 per cent — but the partial pressure falls with total pressure, so each breath delivers far less oxygen to the blood. We set this out in more detail in our piece on the NCC's Parang La trek, and the same physiology governs any high-altitude operation.
Acclimatisation is the body's adjustment: faster and deeper breathing and a raised heart rate within hours, then, over days and weeks, increased red blood cell production driven by erythropoietin. It cannot be hurried, which is what makes twenty summits in twenty-three days a genuinely demanding schedule — the team had to be acclimatised before the climbing began, and had to stay acclimatised across a long sequence of ascents.
The failure modes are AMS (acute mountain sickness), HAPE (high altitude pulmonary oedema) and HACE (high altitude cerebral oedema). For the severe forms, the definitive treatment is descent, and no amount of fitness substitutes for recognising the symptoms early. The working rule remains climb high, sleep low.
India's mountaineering institutes
The institutional set is examinable and worth holding together, because questions pair institute with location.
- NIMAS — National Institute of Mountaineering and Adventure Sports, Dirang, Arunachal Pradesh, under the Ministry of Defence. The newest of the group, and distinctive in covering land, air and water adventure sports rather than mountaineering alone.
- HMI — Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, Darjeeling, West Bengal, established in 1954 after Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary's ascent of Everest, with Tenzing Norgay as its first Director of Field Training.
- NIM — Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, Uttarkashi, Uttarakhand.
- JIM — Jawahar Institute of Mountaineering and Winter Sports, Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir.
- The Army's own high-altitude and winter warfare training runs through the High Altitude Warfare School at Gulmarg.
Note the ministry: NIMAS is under Defence, which is the detail candidates most often get wrong, assuming sports or youth affairs.
Why the armed forces do this at all
An expedition is not an operation, and it is fair to ask what it is for. The answer has three parts, and a candidate who can give them is answering better than one who treats it as ceremony.
Terrain competence. India's northern frontier is high-altitude terrain, and the Army operates there continuously. Mountaineering builds exactly the skills that environment demands — movement on snow and ice, glacier travel, crevasse rescue, rope work, avalanche assessment, and the judgement to know when to turn around.
Selection and development. Extended expeditions test decision-making under genuine consequence, in small teams, with degraded comfort and incomplete information. That is a reasonable proxy for the qualities officer training is trying to develop, which is why adventure training sits inside the syllabus rather than beside it.
Knowledge of the ground. A first ascent in a little-visited area produces route information, terrain assessment and mapping detail that did not previously exist. In frontier regions that has value beyond the sport.
And there is a fourth, stated openly by the Raksha Mantri: inspiration and visibility. Adventure achievements recruit, and they establish a presence on the international mountaineering map that a country with this much mountain terrain has an interest in holding.
For the NDA aspirant specifically, the practical point is that adventure training is not an optional extra at the Academy. It is part of the course, and a candidate who arrives with genuine outdoor experience — trekking, climbing, navigation — starts from a better place than one who has only trained in a gymnasium.
🔑 Revision block
- The event: 25 September 2026 — Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh flagged in the First Ascent Expedition at Kartavya Bhavan-2, New Delhi
- The achievement: 20 previously unclimbed peaks above 6,000 metres, summited in 23 days
- Where: the Chamser-Lungser, Gyama Nala and Chokula areas of the Ladakh Range — first recorded summits
- The team: 20 climbers from NIMAS, Dirang, led by Col Ranveer Singh Jamwal
- First ascent: the first documented successful climb of a peak by any route — distinct from a new route, a first winter ascent or a first solo
- Why unclimbed 6,000ers remain: sheer number of such peaks; remote approaches; access and permission in frontier areas; and no reputational return for commercial expeditions
- Altitude: above about 5,500 m atmospheric pressure is roughly half sea level; the proportion of oxygen stays about 21 per cent, but partial pressure falls
- Acclimatisation: faster and deeper breathing and raised heart rate within hours; erythropoietin-driven red blood cell increase over days and weeks
- Altitude illnesses: AMS, HAPE (pulmonary oedema), HACE (cerebral oedema); definitive treatment for severe forms is descent; rule of thumb climb high, sleep low
- NIMAS: Dirang, Arunachal Pradesh, under the Ministry of Defence; covers land, air and water adventure sports
- HMI: Darjeeling, West Bengal, established 1954; Tenzing Norgay its first Director of Field Training
- NIM: Uttarkashi, Uttarakhand
- JIM: Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir
- High Altitude Warfare School: Gulmarg
- Why the forces do it: terrain competence, selection and development under consequence, knowledge of the ground, and inspiration
🎯 Practice MCQs
Q1. The First Ascent Expedition of 2026 summited unclimbed peaks in: (a) The Karakoram (b) Ladakh (c) Sikkim (d) Garhwal
→ (b) — in the Chamser-Lungser, Gyama Nala and Chokula areas.
Q2. The expedition was mounted by: (a) Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, Darjeeling (b) Nehru Institute of Mountaineering, Uttarkashi (c) National Institute of Mountaineering and Adventure Sports, Dirang (d) Jawahar Institute of Mountaineering, Pahalgam
→ (c)
Q3. NIMAS is located at Dirang in: (a) Sikkim (b) Himachal Pradesh (c) Uttarakhand (d) Arunachal Pradesh
→ (d) — and it functions under the Ministry of Defence.
Q4. A "first ascent" refers to: (a) The first documented successful climb of a peak by any route (b) The first climb of a season (c) The first ascent without supplementary oxygen (d) The first ascent by a national team
→ (a)
Q5. The Himalayan Mountaineering Institute at Darjeeling was established in: (a) 1947 (b) 1954 (c) 1961 (d) 1965
→ (b) — following the first ascent of Everest, with Tenzing Norgay as first Director of Field Training.
Q6. At high altitude the body receives less oxygen because: (a) The percentage of oxygen in air falls sharply (b) Cold air holds less oxygen (c) The partial pressure of oxygen falls with total atmospheric pressure (d) Oxygen molecules become heavier
→ (c) — the proportion stays about 21 per cent.
Q7. The definitive treatment for severe high altitude pulmonary or cerebral oedema is: (a) Increased fluid intake (b) Rest at the same altitude (c) Supplementary oxygen alone (d) Descent
→ (d)
Q8. The hormone driving increased red blood cell production during acclimatisation is: (a) Erythropoietin (b) Adrenaline (c) Cortisol (d) Thyroxine
→ (a)
Q9. Many 6,000-metre peaks in Ladakh remain unclimbed principally because: (a) They are technically beyond current climbing ability (b) They are remote, often restricted, and offer no reputational return to commercial expeditions (c) Climbing above 6,000 metres is prohibited (d) They are permanently obscured by cloud
→ (b)
Q10. Consider the following statements: 1. The High Altitude Warfare School is located at Gulmarg. 2. A first ascent party climbs without route information that later parties inherit. Which is/are correct? (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) Both 1 and 2 (d) Neither 1 nor 2
→ (c) — no route description, no photographs of the upper section, no record of where a camp can safely be placed.
📋 How this gets asked (PYQ pattern)
Adventure and institutional questions recur in the NDA general ability paper, and this item sits in a group that repays learning as a set.
The institute question is the most direct: match the mountaineering institute to its location. NIMAS-Dirang, HMI-Darjeeling, NIM-Uttarkashi, JIM-Pahalgam. Four institutes, four places, and the ministry attached to NIMAS — Defence — is the detail most often missed.
The range question asks where a peak or area lies. Ladakh Range, Zanskar, Karakoram, Pir Panjal, Greater Himalaya — and the order in which they run from the plains is a standard geography question that this item connects to naturally.
The physiology question covers altitude, acclimatisation and the three altitude illnesses. It has appeared in both the NDA and CDS papers, and the partial-pressure explanation is what separates a correct answer from a vague one.
The person question occasionally asks who led a notable expedition or who founded an institute. Tenzing Norgay's association with HMI is the most asked of these.
For the SSB interview, an expedition of this kind is a good example to have ready if asked why the armed forces invest in adventure training. The answer that works names terrain competence for a force that operates on high-altitude frontiers, and decision-making under genuine consequence as a selection tool — and then adds that a first ascent in an unvisited area produces terrain knowledge that did not exist before. That is three reasons, and it is a better answer than describing adventure sport as character-building in the abstract.
Preparing for NDA? Institutional questions are cheap marks when learnt as sets — institute, location, and the ministry that runs it. Build the base with our NDA general ability notes, follow the daily NDA current affairs, and prepare with our faculty in the upcoming Cavalier courses in Delhi.
✍️ Written by Maj Sunil Chopra — Co-founder and defence studies faculty at The Cavalier. Reviewed by the Cavalier Faculty Desk.