53-year-old Nepali sherpa scales Everest for record 28th time

KATHMANDU - A Nepali sherpa reached the summit of Mount Everest for a record 28th time on Tuesday, an official said,

completing his second ascent in just a week,

as the death toll in this year’s climbing season reached 11.

Mr Kami Rita Sherpa, 53, reached the 8,849m summit by the traditional south-east ridge route, said Nepali tourism official Bigyan Koirala, following his 27th climb last week.

Pioneered by the first summiteers, New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953, the route remains the most popular path to the world’s tallest peak.

“Kami Rita is on his way down from the summit,” said Mr Thaneswar Guragai, the general manager of his employer, the Seven Summit Treks company. The company added that climbing is a passion for the sherpa.

“He climbed with other clients, but we are waiting for details.”

Mr Kami Rita first climbed Everest in 1994, and has done so almost every year since, except for three years when the authorities closed the mountain for various reasons.

“He developed a deep passion for climbing from a young age and has been scaling the mountains for over two decades,” the company said last week.

Another sherpa climber scaled Everest for the 27th time this week, the most summits after Mr Kami Rita.

British climber Kenton Cool last week climbed Everest

for the 17th time, the most by a foreigner.

However, the dangers the mountain presents for many climbers were reflected in

two more deaths on Everest over the weekend

that took the toll to 11 since April.

One of them who died on Monday was a Nepali sherpa working to clean the mountain, the Nepali Army said in a statement. Equipment and other items left by climbing expeditions can litter the mountain for decades.

An Australian engineer died during the descent from the summit on Friday in the death zone above 7,925m, which is infamous for the thin air that can cause sudden high-altitude sickness.

Mr Jason Bernard Kennison, 40, probably died due to weakness at the Balcony area between the summit and the final camp, said Mr Ang Tshering Sherpa, of the Asian Trekking Co.

“He was being carried down by sherpa climbers but collapsed after reaching the Balcony area,” he said, but gave no details.

Strong winds frustrated efforts to carry more oxygen canisters for Mr Kennison from the final camp, said hiking officials.

“He was just on top of the world, literally, on top of the world and that’s what he wanted to achieve and he achieved that,” Mr Kennison’s mother, Gill, told a press conference in his hometown of Mallala, about 60km north of Adelaide.

“On the descent is when he suddenly fell ill and that’s when he passed away,” his brother, Adrian, added on Monday.

The tally of 11 includes three sherpas who died in April in a serac fall on the lower reaches of the mountain, while others died of illness, weakness and various causes, they added.

Singapore’s Mr Shrinivas Sainis Dattatraya

and Malaysia’s Mr Muhammad Hawari Hashim have been missing since Friday. REUTERS