Nepali sherpa Kami Rita sets new Everest record with 27th ascent
A Nepali sherpa scaled Mount Everest for a record 27th time yesterday, beating his own record, a government official and his hiking company said.
Kami Rita Sherpa, 53, scaled the 8,849m mountain early in the morning along the traditional southeast ridge route, guiding a foreign climber.
“Yes, Kami Rita climbed Sagarmatha [Everest] for the 27th time,” tourism official Bigyan Koirala said,.
Thaneswar Guragai, general manager of the Seven Summit Treks, for which Kami Rita works, said he got to the summit at 8.30am along with the foreign climber.
“We’re trying to get details. For now it’s 100% confirmed that Kami Rita scaled for the 27th time,” Guragai said.
Kami Rita, who refers to himself by his first names, scaled Everest for the first time in 1994 and has climbed it almost every year since then, except in 2014, 2015 and 2020, when climbing was halted for various reasons.
Garrett Madison of the USbased Madison Mountaineering company, who has climbed Everest 12 times, five of them with Kami Rita, described him as a very strong climber.
“Very inspirational to see a local climber continue pushing the limits on Mount Everest,” Madison said by telephone from Everest’s base camp, where he is preparing for a 13th ascent.
Kami Rita, from Thame village in the Solukhumbu district, home to Everest and other peaks, could not be reached for comment as he was descending to lower camps yesterday.
His company said in a statement he had “dedicated his life to mountaineering and has become synonymous with the world’s highest peak”.
Sherpas are known for their climbing skills and many make a living guiding foreign clients up mountains such as Everest.
May is the ideal time for climbing Everest, with clear weather before the monsoon arrives from the south.
This year, Nepal has issued 478 permits, the most ever, for people to climb Everest.
The Himalayan nation has been criticised for allowing too many climbers, many of them inexperienced, to try for Everest’s summit.
Dangerous overcrowding can develop, especially at a bottleneck called the Hillary Step, just below the summit.
Everest has been climbed more than 11,000 times, from both the Nepali and Tibetan sides, since it was first scaled in 1953, with many people going up multiple times.
More than 320 people have died on Everest.