Renowned guide Kami Rita Sherpa scaled Mount Everest for the 25th time on Friday, breaking his own record for most ascents of the world’s highest peak.
Sherpa ascended Everest at 6 pm on Friday as the leader of rope fixing team along with 11 other climbers. With this, the 12 have become the first people to summit the mountain this season.
Their successful ascent is also the earliest spring climb in more than 20 years and the first ascent since the new height of Mount Everest was announced to be 8,848.86 metres.
Sherpa, 52, who currently works as a senior climbing guide at Seven Summit Treks Pvt. Ltd., first scaled Mount Everest on May 13, 1994 at the age of 24.
Since then, he has summited Everest 24 times, Cho Oyu eight times, Manaslu three times and K2 and Lhotse once each. Sherpa also holds the record for the most climbs of mountains over 8000 metres.
According to Seven Summit Treks, the other climbers who reached the top along with Sherpa are Phurtenzi Sherpa, Lakpa Nurbu Sherpa, Ngima Tashi Sherpa, Mingma Tenji Sherpa, Fura Tshering Sherpa, Tenjing Sherpa, Chheten Dorjee Sherpa, Tenjing Gyaljen Sherpa, Phurba Chhotar Sherpa, Mingma Dorchi Sherpa and Furba Kusang Sherpa.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation has condemned reports of climbers at the Everest base camp testing positive for the coronavirus.
Releasing a statement on Friday, the ministry reminded everyone that the Department of Tourism only issued climbing permits to people who produced a negative Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test report and insisted that no cases of COVID-19 had been detected on any of Nepal’s mountains.
It also requested the media to refrain from publishing unverified information without contacting the relevant authorised agencies that would spread unnecessary fear among the mountaineers and their families.
Source : THE RISING NEPAL,
