One day after Pasang Dawa Sherpa, 46, stepped on the roof of the world equaling the 27 peaks of Kami Rita Sherpa, 53, this morning the latter broke the record again by reaching his twenty-eighth Everest (8,849 meters). . The Seven Summits Treks agency has announced that at 9:23 a.m. his most famous guide, Kami Rita, achieved his goal.
Both mountaineers grew up in the Khumbu, in the Everest region. Kami, in the town of Thame, and Pasang, in Pangboche, from where you can reach the base camp, now a sort of high-altitude town, in a single day's walk. But Pa-Dawa's favorite mountain, as it is known, is Ama Dablam, one of the most beautiful in Nepal, at 6,812 meters. that he has crowned 70 times, according to the Imagine Nepal agency, for which he works this spring.
Climbing Everest and other eight thousand in the Himalayas is the work of these two Sherpas. Its mission is to accompany its clients up to 8,849 meters and then ensure that they descend safely. But these latest ascents respond more to Kami Rita's desire to maintain his status as the man with the most Everest to his credit and Pa-Dawa's determination to break it. Both have climbed Everest twice this May and from the Khumbu there is news that Pa-Dawa could try again to match Kami Rita's record.
Before the start of this season, Kami Rita recalled that although many people look for notoriety and records in the Himalayas, in her case, the approach to the mountain came as the only way to earn a living, although later, "it became a passion ".
Both one and the other, just like 99% of the people who try to tread it every spring, use bottled oxygen, climbing without this help is mountaineering from another league. These days, the most ambitious projects must be sought in other Himalayan destinations, far from the masses of Everest, which this 2023 celebrates the 70th anniversary of the first ascent, that of Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary, on May 29, 1953.
The Government of Nepal has issued more permits this spring than ever before, a total of 478 to people arriving from all over the world. But the number of promotions or attempts is around a thousand, since each client is usually accompanied by at least one Sherpa. On the contrary, China has not processed permits for foreigners to climb the Tibetan slope.
The bad news is that eleven deaths have been confirmed so far, bringing the global death toll since 1922 to more than 300 people, according to statistics from the Himalayan Database. The first deaths of this season occurred on April 12 when three Sherpas lost their lives due to the fall of a serac in the Icefall. The last victim, registered on Monday, "is a sherpa who worked with an expedition dedicated to cleaning the mountain," says the Reuters agency. Over the weekend, an Australian engineer died, presumably from the effects of altitude sickness, when he was just over 8,000 meters after descending from the summit. Reuters notes that two other mountaineers, one from Singapore and one from Malaysia, have been missing for three days.
