Nepalese mountain guide Kami Rita, 52, reached the summit of Mount Everest for the 26th time on Saturday, breaking his own record. Kami Rita climbed the 8,848.86-meter mountain along the traditional southeast ridge route as the leader of ten other Sherpas.
“Kami Rita has broken his own record and set a new world climbing record,” said Taranth Adhikari, Director of Tourism Department in the capital Kathmandu.
The climbing route first used by Kima Rita was taken by New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953, and remains the most popular to this day.
Rita first reached the summit of the highest mountain in the world in 1994. It also conquered all other Himalayan giants, including K2 on the Pak-China border, the second highest mountain in the world.
† Climb Everest, only because you can
This year the Nepalese government issued 316 permits, and last year there were 408 permits, this was the highest number ever. In total, 10,657 Mount Everest has been climbed since it was mapped along the Nepalese and Tibetan sides in 1953. 311 people have already died, according to the Himalayan database.
