KATHMANDU, MAY 1

A 41-year-old Indian climber climbed Mt Annapurna without using supplemental oxygen, becoming the first from his country to achieve such a feat in the spring season.

'Skalzang Rigzin from Ladakh, India stood atop the world's tenth highest peak without using bottled oxygen on Thursday at around 2:00 pm,' Babu Sherpa, Managing Director, at Peak Promotion Pvt Ltd, said.

According to climbing records, Skalzang became the first Indian climber to stand atop the 8091-metre peak without using supplemental oxygen. While Mt Annapurna is considered as one of the most difficult mountains amongst the 8000ers, and is known for its fatality to summit rate, Skalzang along with other climbers successfully scaled the mountain, Sherpa added.

From Peak Promotion, Kami Sherpa and Urgen Sherpa had scaled the mountain opening a route to the summit point at around 11:20 am on Thursday while Bharath Thammineni, Palkesh Kalma and Baljeet Kaur also made it to the top along with other climbers the same day.