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,” Mingma Sherpa of Seven Summit Treks, his expedition organiser, told AFP.

A guide for more than two decades, Sherpa, also known as “Everest Man”, first summited the 8,849-metre (29,032-foot) peak in 1994 when working for a commercial expedition.

Since then he has climbed Everest almost every year, guiding clients. It was not immediately clear whether he had a client with him on Sunday.

“Back again for the 29th summit to the top of the world… One man’s job, another man/woman’s dream,” Sherpa posted on his Instagram from base camp last week.

Last year, Sherpa climbed Everest twice to reclaim his record as another guide, Pasang Dawa Sherpa, equalled his number of ascents.

Sherpa, 54, has previously said that he has been “just working” and did not plan on setting records.

He has also conquered other challenging 8,000-metre peaks including the world’s second-highest mountain, K2 in Pakistan.

Nepal has issued 414 Everest permits to mountaineers for this year’s spring climbing season, which runs from April to early June.

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 Friday.

This year, China also reopened the Tibetan route 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.

Last year, more than 600 climbers made it to the summit of Everest but it was also the deadliest season on the mountain, with 18 fatalities.

Kathmandu:

Nepal’s Kami Rita Sherpa also known as ‘Everest Man’ on Sunday morning broke his record by climbing the world’s highest peak, Mount Everest for the 29th time.

The 54-year-old Sherpa climber and guide in the last spring season had climbed the 8848.86 meters tall highest peak two times within a week setting a record for the 28th summit. But the climber has hinted at his plans to climb the peak twice this time again.

Before the summit, Mr Kami Rita had stated that he “has no plan of climbing Sagarmatha (Nepalese name for Mount Everest) for any specified number of times.”

As per the officials from the Department of Tourism, the record-setting climber reached the summit of Everest at 7:25 AM (NST) on Sunday while guiding an expedition organized by the ‘Seven Summit Treks’.

“Congratulations to Kami Rita Sherpa @kamiritasherpa a senior guide at Seven Summit Treks for the 29th successful ascent of Mt Everest this morning at 7:25 AM, 12 May 2024. This ascent earns Kami Rita the title of ‘Most Successful Ascent of Mt. Everest by an Individual,'” the Seven Summit Treks shared in an Instagram post on Sunday morning breaking the news about the successful summit.

Sherpa at the end of May had begun his expedition from Kathmandu accompanying a mountaineering expedition team comprising about 28 climbers. Kami Rita has been climbing Sagarmatha as a guide for the climbers.

Mr Kami Rita is a record-setter climber for the highest number of ascents on the world’s tallest peak in the 71-year-long history of Sagarmatha climbing.

Pasang Dawa Sherpa, also from Solukhumbu, climbed Sagarmatha for the 27th time last year. But, it is not confirmed whether he will be climbing Sagarmatha this time.
 

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