Everest sees first summits of 2019

Eight Nepali climbers reached the top of Mount Everest yesterday, opening the route for a potentially record number of climbers to summit the world’s highest mountain in the coming weeks.

A team of experienced mountaineers were waiting for powerful jet streams raging around the top of Everest to subside to fix ropes to the summit for foreign climbers.

“It has been difficult this year and we were getting worried.

But the weather finally improved for the eight to reach the top,” Iswari Paudel of Himalayan Guides Nepal, the company assigned to fix the ropes, told AFP. Paudel said that many teams were preparing to summit in the next few days.

Nepal has issued a record 378 permits costing $11,000 each to mountaineers for this year’s spring climbing season, sparking fears of overcrowding if the weather cuts down the number of climbing days.

Most Everest hopefuls are escorted by a Nepali guide, meaning about 750 climbers will tread the same path to the top of the 8,850-metre (29,035-foot) peak in the coming weeks.