Global Courant 2023-05-14 14:15:05
Pasang Dawa summited with a Hungarian client atop the 8,849 meters (29,032 ft) summit.
A Nepalese Sherpa guide has climbed Mount Everest for the 26th time, officials said, tying the record held by a fellow Nepalese guide, Kami Rita Sherpa, for the most climbs of the world’s tallest mountain.
Pasang Dawa Sherpa, 46, topped 8,849 meters (29,032 feet) on Sunday, becoming the second person in the world to achieve the feat, Bigyan Koirala, a government tourism official, said on Sunday.
Kami Rita, who is now also climbing Everest, could set a new record if he makes it to the top of the world’s tallest mountain.
Pasang Dawa Sherpa reached the summit on Sunday morning along with a Hungarian climber, according to expedition organizer Imagine Nepal Treks.
“They are now coming down from the top and are in good shape,” the official, Dawa Futi Sherpa, told Reuters news agency.
Sherpas, who usually go by their first names, are known for their climbing skills and make their living mainly by guiding foreign clients in the mountains.
Dawa Futi said a Pakistani woman, Naila Kiani, who also climbed the summit on Sunday, was the first foreign climber to climb Everest in this year’s climbing season, which runs from March to May.
This could not be independently confirmed as many foreign climbers are now on their way to the summit, a day after the ropes to the summit were repaired.
Kiani, a 37-year-old banker from Dubai, had climbed four of the world’s 14 highest mountains before Everest, according to The Himalayan Times newspaper.
Nepal has issued a record 467 permits this year to foreign climbers seeking to summit Everest.
Climbers generally reach the mountain’s base camp in April and spend weeks acclimatizing to the high altitude, rugged terrain, and thin air before heading up the mountain’s slopes. In the first or second week of May they usually make attempts for the top.
Each climber is usually accompanied by at least one Sherpa guide, fueling fears that a narrow section below the summit known as the Hillary Step could get crowded.
This year also marks the 70th anniversary of the first ascent of Mount Everest in 1953 by New Zealander Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay. Since then it has been climbed more than 11,000 times.
