May 14, 2024
KATHMANDU – World record holder Kami Rita Sherpa reached the top of Mt Everest for the 29th time on Sunday, breaking his own record for the most summits of the world’s highest mountain.
He also has another climb in his mind. But this year, Kami Rita, 54, has no contender.
Khim Lal Devkota, the Everest base camp coordinator, told the Post from the Everest Base camp that Kami Rita reached the summit at 7:25 am on Sunday.
Before leaving for Everest, Kami Rita had told the Post that if things go as planned, he may climb Everest twice this year.
“It depends on him when he wants to climb again. We don’t have any objection,” said Mingma Sherpa, chairman of Seven Summit Treks, with whom Kami Rita works as a senior guide.
Following Kami Rita is another Sherpa—Pasang Dawa—who has 27 summit titles on the world’s highest mountain.
Dawa Sherpa of Imagine Nepal Trek and Expeditions, with whom Pasang Dawa works as a senior guide, said Pasang Dawa would not be climbing Everest at least for this spring.
“He [Pasang Dawa] has informed us that he is tired of climbing Everest and wants to take a rest. He says he is least bothered about competition,” said Dawa. “He is not in favour of competition on Everest.”
The Post’s attempts to contact Pasang Dawa were unsuccessful.
Last year, Pasang Dawa, now 47, summited Everest for the 27th time, after his double ascent in a single season. Kami Rita climbed Everest twice to reclaim his record.
Records, titles, deaths and crowds are nowadays synonymous with Everest.
Japan’s Yuichiro Miura and Nepali Min Bahadur Sherchan had their own competition starting in 2008.
That year, Sherchan scaled the peak at the age of 76 years and 340 days and was officially recognised as the oldest to climb the mountain by the Guinness World Records in November 2009.
Sherchan replaced Miura in the Guinness Records. Miura had first climbed Everest in 2003 at the age of 70. He climbed Everest again in May 2008 when he was 75. But this time, Miura failed to set a record as he reached the summit a day after Sherchan achieved the same feat at 76.
But the competition was far from over. Miura again climbed Everest aged 80 in 2013. Everest was now witnessing a clash of two octogenarians. Serchan, at 85, again tried to be the oldest person to climb Everest, but died at base camp in 2017.
Then there is the episode of Sherpas, this one between Apa Sherpa and Phurba Tashi Sherpa.
Apa made his 21st Everest summit in May 2011 then retired after a promise to his wife to stop climbing after 21 ascents.
He was still the joint holder of the world record of Mount Everest summits as of 2017, with Phurba Tashi and Kami Rita Sherpa, but Kami Rita Sherpa broke the record in 2018.
In 2017, Kami Rita became the third person to reach the summit of Everest 21 times, and subsequently, in 2018, took the title from Apa and Phurba Tashi and became the world record holder.
Kami Rita’s mountaineering journey began in 1992 when he joined an expedition to Everest as a porter. He, however, made his first Everest ascent on May 13, 1994, aged 24.
Since then, he has been climbing Everest almost every year.
Kami Rita climbed Everest twice each in 2009, 2010, 2013, 2019 and 2023.
Pasang Dawa came into the limelight after he made double ascents for two consecutive years—in 2018 and 2019. Everest was closed in 2020 due to the pandemic. In 2022 and 2023, Pasang Dawa again made a double ascent.
Born in Pangboche, a village near the Everest base camp, Pasang Dawa first summited Everest in 1998.
He recorded a single climb on Everest in 1999, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2016 and 2017.
He climbed Everest twice each in 2001, 2007, 2010, 2013, 2018, 2019, 2022 and 2023.
This year, Nepal’s Department of Tourism has issued Everest climbing permits for 414 fee-paying individuals, down from a record 479 last year.
A climbing permit for Everest costs $11,000 for a foreigner and Rs75,000 for a Nepali.
Nepali high-altitude Sherpa guides helping climbers are not required to pay fees.
More than 8,000 mountaineers have climbed Everest from the Nepal side since Tenzing Norgay Sherpa and New Zealander Edmund Hillary first set foot atop the world’s highest peak in May 1953.