Published May 13, 2011 12:00AM
Apa Sherpa summited Everest on Wednesday for the 21st time, breaking his own world record of 20 summits, the Alpinist reports. The 51 year old first reached the summit in 1990 and has stood atop the highest point on earth nearly every year since. This marks the fourth consecutive year Sherpa has summited with The Eco Everest Expedition, a team that aims to remove garbage, debris, and waste from Everest. This year they hope to remove 11,000 pounds of trash.
Several other teams have successfully summited the past few days after weeks of acclimatization rotations. Among them was Squash Falconer, the plucky Brit who planned to paraglide from the summit. According to her blog, however, “She didn’t fly from the top mostly due to 50km an hour winds and only 10 m visibility!”
International Mountain Guides put 11 people on the summit yesterday and expects the weather to hold as their second team heads toward the summit. Soon to follow with another IMG team is climber and Outside blogger Alan Arnette.
This week also saw another death on Everest, according to the BBC. Their report says Shailendra Kumar Upadhyay, 82, was returning to base camp Monday evening when he collapsed. Upadhyay, a former Nepalese foreign minister, was trying to break the record for oldest person to summit Everest.
Gizmodo.com reported this week on another way to see the top of Everest: Everest 3D. A collaboration between DigitalGlobe and 3D RealityMaps, Everest 3D is an interactive software that lets users explore the Everest area in high resolution. Gizmodo quotes the CEO of 3D RealityMaps as saying, “With a ground resolution of the 3D data of 150 cm, our application is about 400 times better than that available in most 3D views.”
–Michael Webster
Everest 3D – 3D RealityMaps from 3D RealityMaps on Vimeo.