50th anniversary of first Kangchenjunga ascent

"Fifty years ago, Mount Everest and K2 had already been climbed, so we climbed Kangchenjunga, though it was very difficult," New Zealander Norman Hardie, 80, told a Golden Jubilee celebration.

British climbers George Band and Joe Brown reached the 8,586-metre (28,168 feet) peak on May 25, 1955, and Hardie and Tony Streather made it up the following day as part of team organized by Britain's Charles Evans.

Band, Hardie and Streather met government officials Wednesday and were later driven through Kathmandu on horse-drawn carriages followed by traditional musical bands. Brown could not attend because of health problems.

Kangchenjunga, a chain of five peaks on the border with India, has been scaled 195 times since the first ascent and has claimed the lives of 30 climbers, said Nepal Mountaineering Association president Ang Tsering Sherpa.