Thirty Times to the Top of the World: Kami Rita Sherpa's Unprecedented Everest Mastery

To reach the summit of Mount Everest once is, for most human beings, the supreme accomplishment of a lifetime. It requires months of grueling physical preparation, weeks of hypoxic suffering, and surviving the lethal hazards of collapsing ice towers in the Khumbu Icefall, roaring avalanches on the Lhotse Face, and the suffocating atmosphere of the Death Zone.

To stand on that 8,848-meter apex thirty times is a feat that defies ordinary human comprehension.

On May 22, 2024, at 7:49 AM, a 54-year-old guide from Thame village named Kami Rita Sherpa stepped onto the summit of Mount Everest for the thirtieth time in his life. In doing so, he cemented his status as the undisputed ‘Everest Man’ and the most prolific high-altitude mountaineer who has ever lived.

Born to the High Trails

Kami Rita was born in 1970 in Thame, the storied valley that also produced Tenzing Norgay and Apa Sherpa. His father, Mingma Tshering Sherpa, was among the first generation of high-altitude porters who accompanied early foreign expeditions after Nepal opened its borders in 1950. As a teenager, Kami Rita spent years in a local Buddhist monastery studying scriptures, but he soon felt the inescapable pull of the high glaciated passes.

He began working on Everest in 1992, hauling heavy tents and cooking kerosene up through the Icefall. On May 13, 1994, at age 24, he stood on the summit of Mount Everest for the very first time.

Over the next three decades, while international climbers came and went, Kami Rita returned to Everest year after year. Serving as a senior guide and expedition leader for Seven Summit Treks and Alpine Ascents International, he was often on the frontlines: leading the rope-fixing teams that secured hundreds of ladders and thousands of meters of static safety rope across yawning crevasses and sheer ice headwalls so that other climbers could safely follow.

The Machine-Like March to Thirty

By 2018, Kami Rita had matched Apa Sherpa’s record of 21 summits. From that point forward, every single climb extended the frontier of world history. In 2019, he summited twice in seven days (reaching numbers 23 and 24). In 2023, he summited twice again.

In the spring season of 2024, Kami Rita arrived at Everest Base Camp in peak physical condition. On May 12, 2024, he guided an international expedition to the top, securing his 29th summit. Instead of packing his duffel bags and trekking down to Namche Bazaar for celebratory feasts, Kami Rita rested for only a few days at Base Camp before strapping on his crampons again.

On May 21, he moved through Camp IV on the South Col under a canopy of stars. Leading his climbers up the Balcony, past the South Summit, and across the narrow crest of the Hillary Step, Kami Rita reached the 8,848-meter summit on the morning of May 22, 2024.

Thirty summits. Nearly forty total summits across the 14 eight-thousanders, including K2, Cho Oyu, Lhotse, and Manaslu.

When journalists at Base Camp asked him about the world record, Kami Rita smiled gently with customary Sherpa humility: “I am not climbing for world records. I am just a working man doing my duty to support my family. But I am proud to show the world what the Sherpa people are capable of, because without the Sherpas, nobody climbs these mountains.”