KATHMANDU (Reuters) – A Nepalese Sherpa guide climbed Mount Everest for the 26th time on Sunday, becoming only the second person in the world to complete the feat, hiking officials said.
Pasang Dawa Sherpa, 46, stood at the summit of 8,849 meters (29,032 feet), sharing the record for most ascents with Kami Rita Sherpa, according to Vigyan Koirala, a government tourism official.
Kami Rita is also currently climbing Mount Everest, and if she does, she could set a new record.
Pasang Dawa reached the summit with a Hungarian client, said an official at his employer, the mountaineering company Imagine Nepal Treks.
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“They are now coming down from the top and are in good shape,” the official, Dawa Huti Sherpa, told Reuters.
Sherpas, who mostly go by their first names, are known for their mountaineering skills and earn their living primarily by guiding foreign clients in the mountains.
Naira Kiani, a Pakistani woman who also reached the summit on Sunday, became the first foreign climber to successfully reach the summit of Mount Everest during this year’s climbing season, which runs from March to May, Dawa Huti said.
The day after the rope to the summit was secured, this could not be independently confirmed as many foreign climbers are currently aiming for the summit.
Kiani, a 37-year-old Dubai-based banker, had climbed four of the world’s 14 highest peaks before Everest, according to the Himalayan Times.
Nepal has a record of issuing 467 permits to foreign climbers hoping to climb Mount Everest this year.
Each climber is usually accompanied by at least one Sherpa guide, raising concerns that the narrow section below the summit known as the Hillary Steps will be overcrowded.
Everest has been climbed more than 11,000 times since it was first climbed in 1953 by Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, according to the Himalayan database and Nepalese authorities, and about 320 people have died in the process. It is said that
(Reporting: Gopal Sharma; Editing: Clarence Fernandez)
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