Nepali Sherpa conquers Mount Everest for record 28th time, death toll rises to 11

After his 27th ascent last week, Nepalese tourism official Bigyan Koirala said 53-year-old Kami Rita Sherpa reached the 8,849-metre (29,032 ft) summit via the traditional southeast ridge route.

pioneered by the first summiteers, Sir Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953, the route remains the most popular route to the world’s highest peak.

“Kami Rita is descending from the summit,” said Thaneswar Guragai, general manager of her employer, Seven Summit Treks Co., who says climbing is a passion for Sherpa.

“He boarded with other customers but we are awaiting details.”

kami rita first climbed Everest in 1994, and has done so almost every year since then except for three years when authorities closed the mountain for various reasons.

“He had a deep passion for climbing from a young age and has been climbing mountains for more than two decades,” the company said last week.

Separately, Guragai said American deaf couple Scott Lehman and Shayna Unger climbed Lhotse, the world’s fourth-highest mountain at 8,516 meters (29,939 feet), on Tuesday, a day after scaling Everest, “both summits Became the first such pair to climb”.

Another Sherpa climber climbed everest 27th this week, the most since Kami Rita, while British climber Kenton Cool climbed it for the 17th time last week, the most by a foreigner.

However, the dangers the mountain presents to many climbers were reflected in two more deaths over the weekend, bringing the death toll to 11 since April.

A Nepalese Sherpa, who was working to clear the mountain, died on Monday, the Nepalese army said in a statement. Equipment and other items left behind by mountaineering expeditions can litter the mountain for decades.

An Australian engineer died while descending from the summit on Friday in the death zone above 26,000 feet (7,925 metres), which is infamous for the thin air that can cause sudden attacks of high altitude sickness.

Ang Tshering Sherpa of the Asian Trekking Company said on Tuesday that 40-year-old Jason Cannison probably died of weakness in the balcony area between the summit and the final camp.

“He was being taken down by Sherpa climbers, but he collapsed after reaching the balcony area,” he added.

Hiking officials said strong winds thwarted efforts to move more oxygen canisters from the last camp to Cannison.

“He was on top of the world, literally, on top of the world and that’s what he wanted to achieve and he achieved it,” Cannison’s mother Gill told a news conference in his hometown of Mallala, some 60 km (37 mi) away. ” miles) north of Adelaide.

His brother Adrian said on Monday, “He was coming down when he suddenly fell ill and passed away.”

He said the number of 11 included three Sherpas who died in April after collapsing a serac on the lower parts of the mountain, while others died of illness, weakness and various causes.

Officials said one climber each from Singapore and Malaysia was missing for the last three days.

The text of this story is published from a wire agency feed without any modification. Only the headline has been changed.