KATHMANDU, MAY 12

A 48-year-old Nepali woman climber today successfully scaled the world's highest peak for the record tenth time from the Nepal side this season.

According to Mingma Gelu Sherpa, Managing Director at Seven Summit Adventure, Lhakpa Sherpa broke her own world record by standing atop the roof of the world for the tenth time at 6:30am on Thursday. Lhakpa had begun her summit push from Camp IV early morning, Mingma Gelu, who is now at the Everest Base Camp, said.

Born in Makalu VDC of Sankhuwasabha, Lhakpa is the first and only woman to successfully scale Mt Everest 10th time in the world. No other woman in the world has scaled the peak so many times till date, according to a record at the Department of Tourism.

Before heading for the summit push, Lhakpa told THT that she wanted to follow the footsteps of Tenzing Norgay Sherpa and Edmund Hillary who scaled Mt Everest for the first time in 1953. 'I had trekked to the base camp all the way from Dolakha and Ramechhap via Salleri, the route which was used by the legendary climbers,' she said.

According to Lhakpa, she is climbing mountains for women's empowerment as she wants to inspire today's youth and women. 'I also want to prove that Nepali women are hardworking as well as determined and can do anything they want,'' she added.

'Lhakpa has made the whole mountaineering industry proud,' Santa Bir Lama, President at Nepal Mountaineering Association, reacted.

Lhakpa, who lives in suburban Connecticut in the US and works as a dishwasher at the Whole Foods Market in Hartford, was a part of the Seven Summit Adventure Everest expedition while a small crew accompanying Lhakpa filmed a documentary on her climb, Mingma Gelu shared.

Earlier, Lhakpa stood atop the summit of world's highest mountain for the ninth time from the North Col (Tibetan side) in 2018. 'This was her second ascent of Mt Everest from the Nepal side,' Sherpa said.

Without having any formal training on mountain climbing, Lhakpa, who grew up with 11 siblings, first climbed Mt Everest from the Nepal side in 2000. 'I worked as a porter when I was 15 and started climbing peaks then after,' Lhakpa earlier told THT.

Lhakpa, also a former Seven-Eleven store worker, had reportedly scaled Mt Everest eight months after the birth of her first daughter and while she was two months pregnant with her second child.

'The team is safely descending to the lower camps from the summit point,' Mingma Gelu said.