Mountaineers call for Everest upper age limit as family grieves for man, 85
FAMILY and supporters have honoured an 85- year- old Nepali man who died trying to regain his title as the oldest person to climb Mount Everest, while officials moved to limit the age for such a physical challenge.
The death of Min Bahadur Sherchan has revived concerns about allowing elderly people to attempt to scale peaks where the conditions are harsh and oxygen level low.
Nepali law requires Everest climbers to be at least 16 but there’s no upper age limit.
“It is very necessary to immediately bring that age limit law. If there had been a limit, the loss of life could have been prevented,” said Ang Tshering, head of the Nepal Mountaineering Association.
The association is planning to push the government to limit the age of climbers to at least 76, he said.
Sherchan died on Saturday evening at the Everest base camp. Another Nepali man, Shailendra Kumar Upadhyaya, died in 2011 at age 82 while attempting to scale Everest.
Hundreds of climbers have died on Everest alongside the more than 4000 who have successfully summited the world’s highest mountain since 1953. Bottled oxygen and better climbing equipment have helped reduce deaths significantly.
Dinesh Bhattarai, who heads the Tourism Department, said that the government was seriously discussing an upper age limit.
Sherchan had first scaled Everest in May 2008 when he was 76 – at the time becoming the oldest climber to reach the top. But his record was broken in 2013 by 80- year- old Japanese Yuichiro Miura.