Two Nepali Guides Break Everest Records

Two renowned Nepali guides have scaled Mount Everest with one called the “Everest Man” breaking his own record set last year with a 32nd climb and the other, known as the “Mountain Queen”, breaking her own women’s record with an 11th summit.

“This is another milestone in Nepal’s mountaineering history,” Himal Gautam, spokesperson for Nepal’s Tourism Department, told the AFP news agency on Sunday.

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Kami Rita Sherpa, 56, first stood on top of the world’s highest mountain in 1994 while working for a commercial expedition. Since then, he has continued to guide clients climbing Mount Everest almost every year, reaching the summit twice in some years.

Lhakpa Sherpa, 52, first stood on top of Everest in 2000, becoming the first Nepali woman to successfully summit and descend the Himalayan peak.

“Their record gives greater excitement to other climbers,” Gautam said. “By breaking records through healthy competition on Everest will help make climbing safer, more dignified and better managed.”

In 2024, after another ascent of the 8,849-metre (29,032ft) peak, Kami Rita said he was “just working” and did not plan on setting records.

Kami Rita was born in the same Thame village in Solukhumbu district as Tenzing Norgay, who with Edmund Hillary was the first to climb Everest in 1953.

Since then, a climbing boom has made mountaineering a lucrative business.

Nepal has issued a record 492 Everest permits this year for the March-May climbing season. More than 8,000 people have climbed the mountain since Hillary and Norgay’s expedition, many of them several times.

Among non-Sherpa climbers, the record is held by British guide Kenton Cool, who has accomplished the feat 19 times, followed by American climbers Dave Hahn and Garrett Madison with 15 climbs each. Cool and Madison are currently on Everest to improve their records.

The high numbers of climbers along with their Sherpa guides who are expected to head for the summit in the next few days have rekindled concerns about overcrowding on the mountain, especially if poor weather shortens the climbing window.