By Gopal Sharma
KATHMANDU (Reuters) - A Norwegian woman and her sherpa guide climbed Mount K2 in Pakistan on Thursday, their 14th highest mountain in just over three months, becoming the world’s fastest climbers to scale all peaks above 8,000 metre (26,246 feet) in the shortest time, an official of their Nepali organising company said.
Kristin Harila, 37, and Nepal’s Tenjen (Lama) Sherpa, 35, scaled K2, which is the world’s second highest at 8,611 metres (28,251 feet) with eight other guides, Tashi Lakpa Sherpa, managing director of the Seven Summit Treks (SST) company which is providing logistics to the climbers, said in Kathmandu.
“They have become the fastest to climb all 14 peaks,” Tashi, told Reuters, quoting information from the base camp.
Climbing all 14 highest peaks in a few months is a challenging feat, which is normally done by many climbers in years.
They set the fastest climbing record by beating Nirmal Purja from Nepal who completed all peaks in six months and one week in 2019. But their latest feat, also confirmed by other climbers on the mountain, is yet to be confirmed by the Guinness Book of World Record.
Both climbers topped Shishapangma in Tibet region of China on April 26 and have since scaled Everest, Kanchenjunga, Lhotse, Makalu, Cho Oyu, Dhaulagiri, Manaslu, and Annapurna in Nepal before proceeding to Pakistan, where they climbed Nanga Parbat, Gasherbrum I, Gasherbrum II and the Broad Peak before topping K2, completing all 14 in 92 days.
Garrett Madison, of the U.S.-based Madison Mountaineering company who is also on K2 leading a different expedition, said the climbers took advantage of a narrow weather window and summitted the mountain.
"They have made a summit a short while ago," Madison told Reuters adding that the Norwegian woman was "extremely tough mentally and physically".
One of the sherpas, the 17-year-old Nima Rinjin Sherpa, also becomes the youngest to climb K2, Tashi said.
(Reporting by Gopal Sharma; Editing by Michael Perry)
