Rita Kami Kami Rita, 51, first climbed Everest in 1994 and has returned virtually every year since. On Friday, a Nepalese climber reached the summit of Mount Everest for the 25th time, surpassing his own record for the most ascents of the world's highest mountain.
He was accompanied by two friends who have also become experts on climbing Everest. They all reached the top together at 7:00 a.m. local time (0300 GMT).
Kami Rita has been married to fellow climber Renato Casimiro since 1995. The couple has three children: a daughter of 10 years old and two sons of 6 years old.
Casimiro and Kami Rita have both been members of an American expedition that successfully summited Everest via its southern route in a single day, without using supplemental oxygen. The pair became the first climbers to do so without professional assistance.
They were 22 years old at the time of their achievement.
After graduating from high school, Kami Rita decided to move to Nepal to work as a cook in one of the camps near Mount Everest. There he met other climbers who invited him to join them on expeditions to the mountain. He began to learn how to climb efficiently using modern equipment. In 1989, at the age of 25, he made his first attempt to reach the summit with a French team.
Rita Kami On May 23, 2019, 354 climbers reached the summit of Everest, the most in a single day. Kami Rita currently works as a guide with Seven Summit Treks, assisting foreign clients in realizing their ambition of standing atop the world's highest peak. The first woman to climb Everest seven times was American Sheri Blum.
She first climbed the mountain in 1978 when it was less well-known and she was almost killed during her second attempt. Since then, she has continued to return to Everest year after year, always going back up again after reaching the top.
As of April 2019, there are only six other people who have managed to do this: three Americans (Jim Whittaker, Joe Kittinger and David Breashears), an Indian (Bachendri Pal), a Nepalese (Nima Rongjun) and a German (Andreas Reinhardt).
Almost all of the 7x summittors were professional high-altitude instructors, researchers or guides. No ordinary person has ever done this before.
And now for some interesting facts about this amazing feat...
• The fastest time to reach the top of Everest is by helicopter, which can get you there in just under an hour. The slowest method is to hike up the mountain, which can take several days.
Kami Rita, Sherpa Mount Everest saw its first summits of 2021 on Friday, as well as a new record: Kami Rita Sherpa reached the top for the 25th time, beating his own record for most ascents. He was heading a rope-fixing crew of 11 Sherpas, according to the Nepalese guiding business Seven Summit Treks. The team had been helping other climbers reach the top of the world's highest mountain when the storm blocked them out.
The 75-year-old Sherpa has been climbing Everest since 1978, when it was still known as Peak West. He has been listed as one of the world's greatest mountaineers by Outside magazine and others.
His latest ascent came on May 1 during a storm with winds up to 130 kilometers (80 miles) an hour. According to Reuters, Kami Rita said he decided to climb despite being "very tired" because "many people were waiting at base camp for help to arrive with food and supplies."
Mount Everest is a 29,029-foot (8,850 meters) peak in the Himalayas. The summit ice field is approximately 1,500 feet (460 m) wide, making it the largest ice field outside of Antarctica. The wind blows at high speeds on the top of the mountain due to its proximity to the sea; this makes it difficult to stay warm during the cold months of April through September.
A Nepalese mountain climber has already climbed Mount Everest 24 times, and he hopes to accomplish it one more time before retiring. Kami Rita Sherpa, 49, has been attempting to scale Everest since 1994. "It's also the second time he's undertaken the hard journey in a week," NPR's Sushmita Pathak writes from Mumbai. "Last year, he made it up to about 8,000 feet (2,438 meters), when he fell sick and had to drop out of the climb."
Now, at age 50, he says he is ready for another try. "I don't feel any older or anything," Sherpa told The Associated Press. "Maybe I'm younger because I want to do this so much."
Sherpa began his climbing career as a guide for Westerners who paid him to take them up mountains that other people considered too difficult. He now leads small groups of climbers on expeditions sponsored by companies like Accenture and Microsoft. The amounts they pay him are not enough to live on, so he sometimes turns to climbing outhouses, temples and other less-than-vertical objects to make money.
He has never allowed himself to be discouraged by failures or injuries. "I have many scars all over my body," he said. "But I never think about what I look like or something like that. My mind is always on the mountain."
When Kami Rita Sherpa (NPL), called "Thapke," reached the summit of Everest on May 21, 2019, it was his 24th summit—the most Everest ascents by any man in history. Born in 1975 in Nepal's Khumbu Valley, Thapa started climbing at age 11 when he helped his father build camps near their home. He quickly became one of the best climbers in his country and had climbed Everest twice before reaching the top in 2019.
The second-most people to have summited Everest are Indian climbers Simojung Lee and Amit Jhangjelka, who accomplished this feat in 2006 and 2015, respectively. Both men had two partners with them on the summit day.
In terms of individual records, all but one of the previous 24 people to climb Everest had also died on the mountain. The exception is Ang Dorjee Sherpa, who survived after his companions died around him. Ang Dorjee recovered from his injuries and continued climbing again later that year.
Through perseverance and courage, many lives have been saved by individuals who have ascended beyond the bodies of their friends and colleagues. These survivors form a strong community who support each other during their attempts and after they return home. Some turn their experiences into books or movies, while others want nothing to do with the mountain after what happened to them.
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