Nepal’s legendary climber, Kami Rita Sherpa, broke his own record by scaling Mount Everest for the 27th time on Wednesday. Kami Rita Sherpa, 53, scaled the 8,848.86-metre mountain, said his expedition organisers Seven Summit Treks. A guide for more than two decades, Kami Rita Sherpa first summited the 8,848-metre (29,029-foot) peak in 1994 when working for a commercial expedition. Since then, he has climbed Everest almost every year, several times leading the first rope-fixing team to open the route to the world's highest point.


 “This morning at 8:30 am, Kami Rita successfully summited Mt Everest for an incredible 27th time,” said Mingma Sherpa, chairman of Seven Summit Treks. Kami Rita’s mountaineering journey started in 1992, and between 1994 and 2023, Kami Rita has summited Everest 27 times, K2 and Lhotse one time each, Manaslu three times and Cho Oyu eight times.


Dubbed as "the Everest man", Sherpa was born in 1970 in Thame, a village in the Himalayas renowned as a breeding ground for successful mountaineers, AFP reported.


Kami Rita is working as a senior climbing guide at Seven Summit Treks Pvt Ltd.


Till Sunday, Sherpa Pasang Dawa shared the record number of summits with Kami Rita Sherpa.


Meanwhile his close second, Dawa on Sunday became the world's second person to scale Mount Everest 26 times.


"Born in Pangboche, Dawa grew up seeing Everest every day. He has made it to the summit of Mt Everest 26 times at 0906 a.m. today," The Himalayan Times quoted Mingma Gyalje Sherpa, Managing Director of expedition organiser Imagine Nepal Treks, as saying.


"His Everest Summits are in 1998, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2004, twice in 2006, twice in 2007, 2008, 2009, twice in 2010, 2011, 2012, twice in 2013, 2016, 2017, twice in 2018 and twice in 2019 and twice in 2022," Gyalje said.


This year, Nepal's Department of Tourism has issued permits to 478 fee-paying individuals, the highest permits issuance on record, to climb the Everest.


A climbing permit for Everest costs $11,000 for foreigners. But climbers end up spending between $40,000 and $90,000 to climb the mountain.