By Gopal Sharma
KATHMANDU (Reuters) - A&nbsp;Nepali&nbsp;sherpa&nbsp;guide climbed Mount&nbsp;Everest&nbsp;for the&nbsp;26th time on Sunday, hiking officials said, becoming the&nbsp;world&rsquo;s&nbsp;second&nbsp;person&nbsp;to achieve the feat.
Pasang Dawa&nbsp;Sherpa, 46, stood atop the 8,849-m (29,032-ft) peak, sharing the record number of summits with Kami Rita&nbsp;Sherpa, said Bigyan Koirala, a government tourism official.
Kami Rita, who is also climbing on&nbsp;Everest&nbsp;now, could set another record if he makes it to the top.
Pasang Dawa reached the top with a Hungarian client, said an official of his employer Imagine Nepal Treks, a hiking company.
"They are descending from the top now and are in good shape," the official, Dawa Futi&nbsp;Sherpa, told Reuters.
Sherpas, who mostly use their first names, are known for their climbing skills and make a living mainly by guiding foreign clients in the mountains.
Dawa Futi said a Pakistani woman, Naila Kiani, who also climbed the peak on Sunday, was the first foreign climber to summit&nbsp;Everest&nbsp;in this year&rsquo;s climbing season, which runs from March to May.
This could not be independently confirmed as many foreign climbers are now headed for the peak, a day after the ropes to the top were fixed.
Kiani, a 37-year-old banker based in Dubai, had climbed four of the world's 14 highest mountains before&nbsp;Everest, the Himalayan&nbsp;Times&nbsp;newspaper said.
Nepal has issued a record of 467 permits this year for foreign climbers seeking to reach the summit of&nbsp;Everest.
Each climber is usually accompanied by at least one&nbsp;sherpa&nbsp;guide, fuelling fears that a narrow section below the summit, known as the Hillary Step, could get crowded.
Everest&nbsp;has been climbed more than 11,000&nbsp;times&nbsp;since it was first&nbsp;scaled by Sir Edmund Hillary and&nbsp;Sherpa&nbsp;Tenzing Norgay in 1953, with about 320 people dying in the effort, according to a Himalayan database and&nbsp;Nepali&nbsp;officials.
&nbsp;
(Reporting by Gopal Sharma; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

you might like

Nepali sherpa becomes world’s second person to scale Everest 26 times