Nepal’s ‘Everest Man’ claims record 29th summit
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Nepali climber and guide Kami Rita Sherpa broke his own record for the most summits of the world’s highest mountain.
PHOTO: AFP
Follow topic:
KATHMANDU – Nepali climber Kami Rita Sherpa reached the top of Mount Everest for the 29th time on May 12, breaking his own record for the most summits of the world’s highest mountain.
“Kami Rita reached the summit this morning. Now he has made a new record with 29 summits of Everest,” Mr Mingma Sherpa of Seven Summit Treks, his expedition organiser, told AFP.
A guide for more than two decades, Mr Kami Rita, also known as “Everest Man”, first summited the 8,849m peak in 1994 when working for a commercial expedition.
Since then he has climbed Everest almost every year
“Back again for the 29th summit to the top of the world... One man’s job, another man/woman’s dream,” Mr Kami Rita posted on his Instagram from base camp last week.
In 2023, Mr Kami Rita climbed Everest twice to reclaim his record as another guide, Mr Pasang Dawa Sherpa, equalled his number of ascents.
Mr Kami Rita, 54, previously said he had been “just working” and did not plan on setting records.
He has also conquered other challenging 8,000m peaks, including the world’s second-highest mountain, K2 in Pakistan.
Nepal has issued 414 Everest permits to mountaineers for spring climbing season, which runs from April to early June 2024.
Most Everest hopefuls are escorted by a Nepali guide, meaning more than 800 climbers will tread the path to the top of the world’s highest peak in the coming weeks after a group of Nepali climbers opened the route to the summit on May 10.
China also reopened the Tibetan route in 2024 to foreigners for the first time since closing it in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Nepal is home to eight of the world’s 10 highest peaks and welcomes hundreds of adventurers each spring, when temperatures are warm and winds are typically calm.
A climbing boom has made mountaineering a lucrative business since Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay made the first ascent in 1953.
More than 600 climbers made it to the summit of Everest in 2023 but it was also the deadliest season on the mountain, with 18 fatalities. AFP
In this photograph taken on Jan 19, 2021, Nepali climber Kami Rita Sherpa poses with his certificates in his rented room at Boudhanath Stupa area on the outskirts of Kathmandu.
PHOTO: AFP
