Nepali mountaineer Kami Rita Sherpa topped Everest on Tuesday for a record 28th time, a day after a compatriot of hers equaled her previous mark.
“Kami Rita Sherpa made a second summit of Everest this morning. It is the 28th time,” Thaneshwor Guragain of the company that organized her expedition, Seven Summit Treks, told AFP.
The day before, Pasang Dawa Sherpa, 46, had equaled the record set by Kami Rita Sherpa last week by climbing the 8,849-meter mountain for the 27th time.
Both have climbed the world’s highest peak twice this season.
Kami Rita Sherpa, a 53-year-old guide with more than two decades of experience and known as the “Everest Man,” first reached the summit of Everest in 1994 while working for a commercial expedition.
Since then, he has crowned the roof of the world almost every year, on several occasions leading the first team, which is responsible for fixing ropes to facilitate the group’s ascent.
Nepal has eight of the world’s ten highest peaks and welcomes hundreds of climbers each year in the season of milder temperatures and weaker winds.
The country’s authorities have issued 478 permits to climb Everest this year.
Most climbers require a guide and for this year it is estimated that more than 900 people may attempt the summit, a record.
The mountaineering industry in the Himalayas relies on the expertise of guides, who are generally Sherpa people, originally from the Everest valleys.
More than 500 mountaineers have climbed Everest, according to data from the Nepal Department of Tourism.
A feat in which deaths are recorded every year. This season, 10 mountaineers lost their lives trying to reach the summit of Everest, four of them guides.