Nepali mountain guide climbs Mt Everest 26th time

KATHMANDU, May 8: Kami Rita Sherpa, a well-known Nepali mountain guide, broke his own record on Saturday by climbing the world's tallest Mt. Qomolangma for the 26th time.

"As a leader of the rope fixing team, Kami reached the top of Mt. Qomolangma at 06:55 p.m. on Saturday," Bhisma Raj Bhattarai, a section officer at Nepal's Department of Tourism, told Xinhua.

"It is his 26th summit of the world's tallest peak," he added.

Seven Summit Treks, a Nepali travel agency which organized the expedition, confirmed the summit of Mt. Qomolangma by 11 Sherpa members of the rope fixing team led by Kami, noting on its Facebook account that they became the first climbers during the spring season to conquer the world's highest mountain from the Nepali side.

Kami, 52, scaled the 8848.86-meter-high Mt. Qomolangma in May 1994 for the first time and achieved the feat of climbing the mountain twice in a single season in 2019 within less than a week as he reached the top for the 23rd and 24th times.

On May 7 last year, he again climbed the peak which straddles Nepal and China, breaking his own record, a world record as well.

According to Seven Summit Treks, besides climbing Mt. Qomolangma 26 times between 1994 and 2022, Kami has climbed K2 (8,611m), the world's second highest peak inside Pakistan, and the world's fourth tallest Mt. Lhotse (8,516m) one time each, the eighth tallest Mt. Manaslu (8,163m) thrice and the sixth tallest Mt. Cho Oyu (8,201m) eight times.

"He holds the record for most climbs over 8,000 meters," the agency said.