Japanese climber who became oldest man to climb world’s highest mountain could see achievement surpassed immediately
The Guardian, Thursday 23 May 2013
Aunprecedented battle for mountaineering supremacy has begun on the slopes of the world’s highest peak after an 80year-old Japanese man became the oldest person to reach the summit of Mount Everest – days before his Nepalese rival was due to attempt the feat at the age of 81. Yuichiro Miura, who has had four heart surgery operations, reached the top of the 8,848m (29,028ft) mountain at 9am local time on Thursday, according to reports from Kathmandu. Miura, a fearless adventurer who skied down the mountain from the South Col in 1970, said he felt great after reaching the summit via the south-east ridge route, which was established by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay six decades ago. “I made it!” Miura said in a phone call from the summit to his home inJapan that was captured by the broadcaster NHK. “I never imagined I could make it to the top of Mount Everest at age 80. This is the world’s best feeling, although I’m totally exhausted. Even at 80, I can still do quite well.” But Miura could soon see his achievement surpassed by a fellow octogenarian whose record he beat this morning. As the Japanese climber celebrated, 81-year-old Min Bahadur Sherchan, who set the
previous record when he climbed Everest aged 76 in 2008, was at base camp preparing his own assault on the peak for early next week. Miura’s successful ascent has reignited a rivalry that has captivated the climbing world since the pair arrived on the summit within a day of each other in 2008. Miura reached the summit on 26 May that year aged 75 years and 227 days, according to the Guinness Book of Records. But Sherchan had reached the top a day earlier, aged 76 and 340 days. Sherchan, a former Gurkha, is reportedly on schedule to begin his attempt, despite recently suffering from a digestive complaint. “Our team leader has just arrived back at base camp and we are holding a team meeting on when exactly I will head up to the summit,” Sherchan said in a phone call. “I am fine and in good health. I am ready to take up the challenge. Our plan is to reach the summit within one week.” Miura, however, has tried to play down his rivalry with Sherchan. “The record is not so important to me,” he said last month. “It is important to get to the top.” Whichever man appears in the record books once Sherchan has completed his attempt, both have a long list of mountaineering milestones to their names. Miura climbed Everest in 2003, at the age of 70. By 1985 he had skied down the highest mountains on all seven continents, a feat achieved by his late father, Keizo, who skied down Mont Blanc when he was 99. When younger, Miura also descended Mount Fuji on skis, aided by parachutes. He trained for the latest Everest climb by hiking in Tokyo with weighted packs and working out on a treadmill in a special lowoxygen room at home. Sherchan, whose only obvious concession to age is the use of a hearing aid, began his career more than 50 years ago when he climbed the 8,166-metre (26,790ft) Mount Dhaulagiri in Nepal. He walked the entire length of the country in 2003. By Wednesday, Miura, accompanied by three other Japanese climbers, including his son, Gota, and six Nepalese sherpas, had reached the steep, icy, oxygen-depleted area on Everest known as the death zone. Writing on his website before he reached the summit Miura said he was making the climb to challenge his “own ultimate limit”. He wrote: “It is to honour the great mother nature. And if the limit of age 80 is at the summit of Mount Everest, the highest place on Earth, one can never be happier.” Miura’s compatriot, Tamae Watanabe, became the world’s oldest woman to climb Everest at the age of 73 in 2012. Miura’s ascent has been the subject of widespread media coverage in Japan. A recent broadcast included photographs of the climber and his team drinking green tea and eating sushi in their tent. As Sherchan prepares to disappoint Miura a second time, his biggest challenger could be the mountain’s notoriously unstable weather, with the favourable conditions that helped the Japanese adventurer to the top on Thursday expected to deteriorate from Friday. Miura is not the first record-setter on Everest this climbing season. Raha Moharrak, 27, became the first Saudi Arabian woman to conquer the peak, while Sudarshan Gautam, a 30-yearold Nepali-born Canadian who lost both arms in an accident, became the first double amputee to make the summit. Nearly 4,000 climbers have reached the top of Everest since the pioneering May 1953 climb, while 240 have lost their lives on its slopes.