Kathmandu, July 31: Settling a dispute over who holds the record as the fastest climber of Mount Everest, Nepalese mountaineering authorities announced today that it's still Sherpa guide Lakpa Gyelu, whose record had been challenged by another Sherpa. The Nepalese tourism ministry said Gyelu remains the fastest climber of the world's highest mountain, racing from the 5,300-meter base camp to the 8,850-meter summit in 10 hours and 56 minutes on May 26.
The 35-year-old Gyelu's record had been challenged by a fellow Sherpa guide Pemba Dorjee, also 35 who scrambled up the summit in 12 hours and 45 minutes just three days earlier. Dorjee had filed a complaint claiming Gyelu had taken much longer than what he had claimed, and said the record should be scrapped.
But after interviewing eyewitnesses, reviewing photographs and checking a report by the government official stationed at the base camp, the ministry has no doubt Gyelu holds the record, said Shanker Koirala, an official at the tourism ministry.
One of the witnesses backing Gyelu was famous Sherpa guide Appa, who has reached the summit a record 13 times. Sherpas were mostly yak herders and traders living high in the Himalayas until Nepal opened to tourism in 1950. Their stamina and knowledge of the mountains makes them popular guides and porters for foreign mountaineers.
This year marks the golden jubilee of the first time the peak was climbed, by New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay on May 29, 1953. Bureau Report