New Delhi, Nov. 9 -- There was a sense of despondency as Bharath Thammineni sat in his tent at the base camp of Cho Oyu (8,201m), the sixth highest mountain in the world. The inclement weather in early October had dumped piles of snow around him. It was evident that there would be more of it up on the mountain, the unstable slopes making conditions tricky for climbing.

There was a lot at stake for Thammineni. Securing a climbing permit from the China Tibet Mountaineering Association had taken eight long months. Getting to the summit of Cho Oyu would make him the only Indian to have climbed nine 8,000-metre mountains of the world. Only now, he was looking at returning empty-handed.

"It's definitely one of the easier climbs, but we had mi...