Reuters
source: reuters
A Briton improved his own Everest record on Friday and notched his 20th ascent to the world’s highest peak, as two Indian climbers died on the mountain, taking the season’s toll to five, hiking officials said.
Kenton Cool, 52, climbed the 8,849-metre (29,032-foot) peak before dawn and was descending to lower camps. He was expected to reach the base camp over the weekend, his expedition organisers said.
An Indian climber died at Camp II and another at the Hillary Step, Nivesh Karki of their expedition organising company Pioneer Adventure said. Both had climbed the summit on Thursday but died during descent, he said on Friday.
Hillary Step is located below the summit in the “death zone”, so called because of the dangerously low level of natural oxygen.
Details of their deaths were not available.
“One body is at very high altitude and we are trying to bring the second body from camp II,” Karki told Reuters.
Cool, the British climber, is “quietly rewriting the record books,” said four-time Everest climber and expedition organiser Lukas Furtenbach of the Austria-based Furtenbach Adventures company.
