Without their courage, knowledge, and labour, the glory remains incomplete.
On a Sunday morning in May 2026, Kami Rita Sherpa — a 56-year-old guide from the same Nepali village that gave the world Tenzing Norgay — stood atop Mount Everest for the 32nd time, breaking a record he himself had set only a year before. His ascent, spanning three decades and nearly every climbing season since 1994, is less a story of conquest than of devotion — a man returning, year after year, to the place that defines both his livelihood and his people's identity. In the same season, fellow Sherpa Lakhpa reached the summit for her 11th time, and three of their countrymen did not come home, reminding us that the mountain's grandeur and its cruelty are never truly separate.
- A 56-year-old guide has now summited the world's highest peak 32 times — a number so far beyond ordinary ambition that it reshapes what we thought a human life could contain.
- The record arrives in a season already shadowed by the deaths of three Nepali climbers, a tension that celebratory headlines struggle to hold alongside the triumph.
- Nepal has issued 492 permits this season alone, turning Everest into a commercial corridor — yet the expertise, the records, and the survival knowledge remain concentrated in Sherpa hands.
- Lakhpa Sherpa's 11th summit on the same day quietly doubled the story, signaling that the Sherpa community's dominance is not singular but structural.
- Nepal's Prime Minister moved quickly to frame both achievements as national identity, calling Sherpas 'unsung heroes' in a statement that was as much political as it was congratulatory.
- The gap between Kami Rita's 32 summits and the next non-Nepali record of 19 continues to widen — a quiet but unmistakable shift in who truly owns the mountain's story.
On a Sunday morning in May, Kami Rita Sherpa reached the summit of Mount Everest at 10:12 a.m. local time — for the 32nd time. He was 56 years old, guiding a team for 14 Peaks Expedition, and in doing so he broke the record he had set just the year before. The achievement spans more than three decades, rooted in a first ascent in 1994 and interrupted only by the avalanche disasters of 2014–2015 and the pandemic year of 2020.
Kami Rita was born in Thame village in Solukhumbu — the same district that produced Tenzing Norgay. His relationship with Everest is not that of a challenger but of someone who has made the mountain a rhythm of his life. Beyond Everest, he has summited K2, Lhotse, Manaslu three times, and Cho Oyu eight times — a body of work at extreme altitude that former Nepal Mountaineering Association president Ang Tshering Sherpa described as the product of both raw strength and rare technical mastery.
On the same day, Lakhpa Sherpa, 52, reached the summit for her 11th time — the most ever recorded by a woman on Everest. Together, the two ascents underscored something larger: the Sherpa community now holds the mountain's records, carries its loads, and understands its dangers in ways no outsider can replicate. Where Western climbers once dominated the narrative, Nepali guides have quietly become its authors.
Prime Minister Balendra Shah issued a statement framing the achievement as national identity rather than personal glory, calling Everest 'the supreme symbol of Nepal's self-respect' and the Sherpas its 'unsung heroes.' The words were deliberate — an acknowledgment that these climbers carry their nation's dignity alongside the physical weight of the climb.
The season's full picture is harder to celebrate cleanly. Nepal issued 492 permits for this March–May window, and three Nepali climbers have already died on the mountain. Every record set at extreme altitude is set against that backdrop — a truth Kami Rita, who has survived 32 times where others have not survived once, understands better than anyone.
On a Sunday morning in May, as the sun climbed over the Himalayas, a 56-year-old Nepali guide named Kami Rita Sherpa reached the summit of Mount Everest for the 32nd time in his life. He arrived at the 8,849-meter peak at 10:12 a.m. local time, guiding a team of climbers working with 14 Peaks Expedition. With that ascent, he broke his own record set just the year before, cementing a legacy that spans more than three decades of climbing the world's highest mountain.
Kami Rita was born in Thame village in Nepal's Solukhumbu district—the same remote place that produced Tenzing Norgay, who stood atop Everest alongside Edmund Hillary in 1953. Kami Rita made his first summit in 1994, when he was in his twenties. Since then, he has returned to the peak almost every single year, missing only three seasons: 2014 and 2015, when expeditions were halted, and 2020, when the pandemic shut down climbing operations. The consistency is almost incomprehensible. Most climbers attempt Everest once, maybe twice. Kami Rita has made it a rhythm of his life.
His achievement extends beyond Everest alone. Between 1994 and 2025, he has summited multiple peaks above 8,000 meters—K2 and Lhotse once each, Manaslu three times, and Cho Oyu eight times. These are mountains that kill experienced climbers. That he has moved among them with such frequency speaks to something beyond mere physical strength. Ang Tshering Sherpa, a former president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, offered a measured assessment: Kami Rita possessed not only raw climbing power but also the technical mastery that separates the truly skilled from the merely brave. "Without being a strong and dedicated climber, one cannot scale Everest for 32 times," Ang Tshering said.
On the same Sunday, another climber summited Everest: Lakhpa Sherpa, a 52-year-old woman who reached the peak for her 11th time—the highest number ever recorded by a woman on the mountain. Her achievement underscored a broader truth about Everest in recent years: the Sherpa community has become inseparable from the mountain's history. Where Western mountaineers once dominated the narrative, Nepali guides now hold the records, carry the loads, and know the mountain in ways outsiders never will.
Prime Minister Balendra Shah issued a statement congratulating both climbers. He framed their achievement not as personal glory but as a reflection of Nepal's national character. "Mt Everest is not merely a geographical elevation; it is the supreme symbol of Nepal's self-respect, courage, patience, and Himalayan civilisation," he wrote. He went further, calling the Sherpa community "truly the unsung heroes of the Himalayas," and argued that without their labor and knowledge, the mountain's glory would remain incomplete. The statement was careful and deliberate—acknowledging that these climbers represent something larger than themselves, that they carry the weight of their nation's identity on their shoulders alongside the physical burden of the climb.
The context matters. Nepal has issued 492 climbing permits for Everest during the current March-May season alone. The mountain has become a commercial enterprise, a destination for wealthy climbers from around the world. Yet the records, the expertise, the deep knowledge of how to survive at extreme altitude—these remain concentrated among Nepali guides. Kami Rita's 32 summits stand in stark contrast to the record held by Kenton Cool, a British guide with 19 ascents, or American climbers Dave Hahn and Garrett Madison, each with 15. The gap has widened, and it reflects a shift in who controls the mountain.
But the mountain exacts a price. During this same season, three Nepali climbers have already died on Everest. The statistics are often buried in celebratory announcements, but they are inseparable from the story. Every record set at extreme altitude is set against a backdrop of risk that the climbers themselves understand intimately. Kami Rita has survived 32 times where others have not survived once. That survival, repeated across decades, is itself the achievement.
Citações Notáveis
Without being a strong and dedicated climber, one cannot scale Everest for 32 times.— Ang Tshering Sherpa, former president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association
Mt Everest is not merely a geographical elevation; it is the supreme symbol of Nepal's self-respect, courage, patience, and Himalayan civilisation.— Prime Minister Balendra Shah
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
What makes someone return to the same mountain 32 times? Is it ambition, or something else entirely?
I think it stops being about ambition after the first few summits. By the 32nd time, you're not chasing a record—you're living a life. For Kami Rita, Everest became his work, his identity, his relationship with the mountain itself.
But there's real danger. Three climbers died this season alone. How does he reconcile that?
He doesn't reconcile it, I think. He acknowledges it. The Sherpa guides know the mountain's moods better than anyone. They've learned to read conditions, to move efficiently, to survive where others can't. That knowledge is earned through repetition and loss.
The Prime Minister called them "unsung heroes." Does that framing change anything for the climbers themselves?
It's recognition, which matters. But it also reveals something uncomfortable—that the people doing the most dangerous work, carrying the heaviest loads, have historically been invisible in the Western narrative of Everest conquest. The PM's words are an attempt to correct that erasure.
Do you think Kami Rita will climb again?
Almost certainly. He's 56 and has climbed nearly every year for three decades. The mountain isn't something he does—it's something he is. The question isn't whether he'll climb again, but whether his body will allow it.
What does his record actually mean for Nepal?
It means the mountain belongs to Nepal now, not in a territorial sense, but in terms of expertise and identity. Kami Rita's 32 summits are 32 statements that this is Nepali terrain, Nepali knowledge, Nepali courage. The world comes to climb Everest, but Nepal owns it.