Lakpa Sherpa
May 20, 2016- Lhakpa Sherpa has broken her own record for the most summits of the world’s highest mountain by a woman scaling Mount Everest for a record seventh time. British national daily newspaper, The Guardian, quoting Rajiv Shrestha of 7 Summits Adventure has reported that Sherpa, 42, a worker in a 7-Eleven shop in Connecticut in the US, reached the summit of the 8,850-metre peak from the Tibetan side on Friday. Shrestha's company had organised Sherpa's expedition. As per the report, Sherpa was accompanied to the top by a Nepalese guide. Three hours later, eight members of a Russian team and eight guides climbed the same northern route. Sherpa, one of 11 children, was born in eastern Sankhuwasabha district, where the world’s fifth-highest mountain, Makalu, is located. Two Sherpa climbers share between them the record of 21 ascents of Everest, the most number of climbs by men. More than 330 people climbed Everest from the Nepalese side this month. Expeditions had been forced off the world’s tallest peak by an earthquake last year that killed at least 18 people at base camp. About 9,000 people were killed across Nepal when the 7.8-magnitude quake struck, in the worst natural disaster in the country’s recorded history.
Contributed by Sangita Shresthova