(Kathmandu) Nepalese mountaineer Phunjo Lama reached the summit of Everest in 14 hours and 31 minutes on Thursday, breaking the record for the fastest ascent of Everest by a woman, a Nepali tourism official said .
“She left at 3:52 p.m. on May 22 and reached the summit at 6:23 a.m. on May 23,” Khim Lal Gautam, head of the local tourism office at the base camp, told AFP.
Phunjo Lama, who is around 30 years old, beat the previous record, which dated from 2021, by 11 hours. She thus broke her own record.
Earlier this month, while still at Everest Base Camp, she said in a Facebook post that she was “100% sure” of reaching the peak of the “Mother Goddess” summit. at 8849 meters.
In 2018, Phunjo Lama broke the record for the fastest ascent by a woman by climbing to the summit of Everest in 39 hours and six minutes.
This record was then beaten in 2021 by Ada Tsang Yin-hung, from Hong Kong, who reached the summit in 25 hours and 50 minutes.
Nepalese mountaineer Lhakpa Gelu Sherpa holds the record for the fastest ascent of Everest by a man, having reached the summit in 10 hours and 56 minutes in 2003.
” Source of inspiration “
Phunjo Lama is a mountain guide and practices helicopter sling rescue – an operation consisting of exiting the aircraft in flight, while being attached to a long line equipped with a sling to rescue injured people and reel them in when the terrain is too dangerous or impassable for a helicopter to approach or land.
She has climbed some of the world’s highest peaks, including Manaslu and Cho Oyu.
“She is very courageous and determined […] and trained hard to reach its summit,” said Maya Sherpa, another climber. “Her record is a source of inspiration for Nepalese mountaineers.”
She accomplished her feat just as the death of Kenyan mountaineer Joshua Cheruiyot Kirui was announced. Contact with the 40-year-old climber and his missing Nepalese guide Nawang Sherpa, 44, was lost on Wednesday morning on Everest.
This death is the sixth this mountaineering season in Nepal and the third on Everest.
At the same time, searches continue to find British mountaineer Daniel Paul Paterson, 40, and his guide Pas Tenji Sherpa, 21, who disappeared on Tuesday morning at an altitude of around 8,750 meters while descending from the summit of Everest, in the collapse of a cornice.
On Monday, Romanian mountaineer Gabriel Viorel Tabara was found dead in his tent on Lhotse, the fourth highest mountain in the world.
Last week, two Mongolian climbers who went missing after reaching the summit of Everest were found dead.
Previously, a Frenchman and a Nepalese had died on Makalu, the fifth highest peak in the world.
Eighteen deaths in 2023
Around 500 foreign and Nepalese climbers have reached the summit of Everest since April, when the climbing season begins which lasts until early June.
In spring, when temperatures are mild and winds generally lower, hundreds of climbers flock to Nepal, home to eight of the world’s 14 highest peaks.
Ultra-experienced Sherpas are the first, each year, to reach the summit of Everest, opening a safe circuit.
Nepal’s multimillion-dollar mountaineering industry relies on the experience of Sherpas, Nepalese mountaineers who serve as guides. They pay a heavy price to accompany foreign climbers every year. A third of the deaths on Everest are Nepalese guides.
This year, Nepal has issued more than 900 permits to climb its mountains –– including 419 for Everest – to foreign mountaineers who, for the most part, climb accompanied by a Nepalese guide.
In 2023, more than 600 climbers reached the summit of Everest, a year marked by a record number of 18 deaths.