Climbed 27 times to 8849 meters: Kami Rita
Photo: Niranjan Shrestha/ AP
Nepalese mountain guide Kami Rita has climbed Mount Everest for the 27th time, surpassing his own previous record for most ascents, according to a government official and his hiking company Seven Summit Treks.
According to the report, he arrived at the summit at 8.30 a.m. (local time) together with a foreign mountaineer. The 53-year-old climbed the 8,849-meter-high mountain via the traditional southeast ridge route.
Kami Rita, who belongs to the Sherpa people living in eastern Tibet, climbed Everest for the first time in 1994 – at that time still as a carrier – and has repeated this almost every year since. With the exception of the years 2014, 2015 and 2020, when the ascent was interrupted for various reasons.
This year, Nepal has issued 478 permits to climb Everest in the high season from March to May for 11,000 US dollars (around 10,000 euros) each – more than ever before. The previous record from 2021 was 408 permits. Mountaineers end up paying between $40,000 and $90,000 for the entire expedition.
Climbing has flushed $5.8 million into the treasury this year, including $5 million from Mount Everest, according to the government. Everest has been climbed more than 1953,11 times since its first ascent in 000, from both the Nepalese and Tibetan sides, with many people having climbed it multiple times.
Himalayan tourism is Nepal's foreign exchange earner
The Himalayan nation of Nepal is highly dependent on climbing, trekking and tourism to generate foreign exchange. Again and again criticism has been voiced that too many climbers, many of whom are inexperienced, are allowed to climb the summit of Everest.
Especially at a bottleneck called Hillary Step, just below the summit, there can be dangerous overcrowding. In 2019, nine exhausted climbers died near the summit after queues of climbers trying to climb up and down.
More than 320 people have died on the mountain, authorities said.
vgl/rtr