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Mountaineers climbing a slope lined up during their ascent from the Hillary Step to summit Mount Everest in Nepal. (AFP)
More than one thousand climbers reached the summit of Mount Everest this season, officials said yesterday, making it the busiest season on record.
Climbers and officials said that a wide summit window — a period of stable weather that allows safe attempts — contributed to a surge of successful ascents.
“More than a thousand climbers reached the summit this season, but the final number will have to be verified,” Nepal’s tourism department official Himal Gautam told AFP.
The Himalayan Database says the most ascents of Everest in a single season was achieved in 2019, when 877 claimed success.
The total number of successful summits will be tallied after the climbs are verified, which require photographs and statements from the climber’s expedition company and guides.
At least five people have died this season — two Indians and three Nepali climbers involved in Everest preparations. Another Nepali guide is missing after he vanished during his descent from the summit.
The world’s highest peak, which straddles the Nepal-China border, can be scaled from either Nepal or the northern face in Tibet. But China closed its route this year.
Nepal had issued a record 494 Everest permits for foreigners this season, with a city of tents springing up at the foot of the mountain for climbers and support staff.
On May 21 alone, an estimated 275 climbers reached the summit of the 8,849-metre (29,032-foot) Himalayan peak, marking the busiest single day on the southern side.
On that day, climbers waiting to summit were seen in photographs standing in line on the icy heights.
— ‘Teamwork made it possible’ —
The season began with fears of delay after a serac — a block of glacial ice — blocked the way, but Nepali climbers established an alternative route.
“It was a challenging start and we were worried what would happen if we couldn’t open the route,” Lakpa Sherpa of 8K Expeditions, who had 80 clients and guides on the top of Everest this season, said yesterday.
“But teamwork made it possible and we now have a very successful season with low fatality.”
Guides also said that improved logistics and technology — including access to the internet — made climbing safer.
Multiple records were broken this season, including that for the highest number of summits by Nepali guide Kami Rita Sherpa, who celebrated his 32nd summit.
Nepal is home to eight of the world’s 10 highest peaks and welcomes hundreds of adventurers each spring.
A climbing boom has made mountaineering a lucrative business since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa made the first ascent in 1953.
