Updated on Monday, April 07, 2008, 00:00 IST

New Delhi, April 07: A 10-member Indian Navy team is just 40 km away from reaching the North Pole and in the process become the first Indians to have skied to both the poles and also climbed Mount Everest. “The (Monday) morning report suggests that the team led by Commander Satyabrata Dham was about 40 km away from the North Pole. They would be reaching there during the intervening night of April 9-10,” a defence spokesman told media.

The group of adventure buffs had embarked on the expedition April 2.

“The team has set off from Longyear-byen (near North pole) braving the high velocity wind and drifting ice. But they are in high spirit,” the spokesman added.

The spokesman said the group had covered 16 km Sunday and skied 10 km Saturday.

“The team after reaching the North Pole will be transported to the Base Camp and then to Oslo and would return home by April 24,” he added.

Dham and two team members - Petty Officers Rakesh Kumar and Vikas Kumar - had climbed Everest in 2004. In 2006, all the 10 members of the present team skied to the South Pole.

Success would bring with it a series of firsts: the first military or civilian organisation to reach the three poles, the first Indian team to ski to the North Pole, the first Indian team to ski to the North and South Poles and, of course, the first Indians to reach all three poles.

Apart from Dham, there are two other officers in the team - Lieutenants Avinash Khajuria and Ajay Sharma, the latter being the medical officers.

Master Chief Raj Kumar, Petty Officers Rakesh Kumar and Vikas Kumar, and Seamen Ramedra Pandey, Brijendra Singh, Manoj Vats, and Sonam Tamchos are the other members of the expedition.

Bureau Report