Nepali smashes women's record for fastest ascent of Everest

KATHMANDU: Nepal's Phunjo Lama smashed the record on Thursday (May 23) for the fastest ascent of Everest by a woman, conquering the world's highest mountain in 14 hours and 31 minutes.

Climbers usually take days to reach the top of the 8,849-metre mountain, spending nights on its different camps to rest and acclimatise.

But Lama, who is in her thirties, shaved more than 11 hours off the previous best that had stood since 2021. It means she has reclaimed her own world record.

"She started (from the base camp) at 15:52 on May 22, summited 6.23am May 23," Khim Lal Gautam, chief of the tourism's department field office at the base camp, told AFP.

Earlier this month, when Lama was still at base camp, she said in a post on Facebook that she was "100 per cent sure" she would reach the top of "the Mother Goddess".

In 2018, Lama clinched the record for the fastest ascent by a woman by climbing Everest in 39 hours and six minutes.

That record was broken in 2021 by Ada Tsang Yin-hung from Hong Kong, who conquered the mountain in 25 hours and 50 minutes.

Nepali climber Lhakpa Gelu Sherpa holds the record for the fastest ascent of Everest, reaching the summit in 10 hours and 56 minutes in 2003.

Lama is also a guide and helicopter long-line rescuer - a job that entails flying in while dangling from a rope to help extract injured climbers when the terrain is too dangerous for aircraft to come in close or land.

She has climbed some of the highest peaks in the world, including Manaslu and Cho Oyu, both also in the Himalayas.

"She is very courageous and determined ... and trained hard for her summit," fellow woman mountaineer Maya Sherpa said.

"Her record is an inspiration for other Nepali female climbers."

Lama's successful ascent came as a Kenyan