Base Camp Breakdown

Total population at Base Camp: 1,000

Number of expeditions: 40

Tents at Base Camp: more than 500

Summits: 239 (the most in one season)
Busiest day: May 22; 109 summits (the most in one day)

Nations represented at the top: 23

Deaths: 3



New record, oldest person to summit: Yuichiro Miura, 70 years 222 days, Japan

New record, youngest person to summit: Ming Kipa, 15, Nepal
New Base-Camp-to-top speed record: Lakpa Gelu Sherpa, 36, Nepal; ten hours 46 minutes

New record, most summits: Apa Sherpa, 43, Nepal; 13 summits
New record, highest-altitude use of a clothes iron: 17,848 feet, by John Roberts and Ben Gibbons, UK

First one-armed man to summit: Gary Guller, 37, Austin, Texas

New Record, World’s highest saloon: the Base Camp Bar (sold out its entire stock of alcohol its first night)
New Record, World’s highest Marathon: Everest Marathon, May 19



First Kuwaiti to summit: Zed Al Refai, 34

First Estonian: Alar Sikk, 37

First black African: Sibusiso Vilane, 32, Swaziland

First pair of sisters: Lakpa Sherpa and Ming Kipa, Nepal

First former governor: Gary Johnson, 50, New Mexico

First live broadcast from the summit: China Mountain Climbing Team, May 21

First Base Camp cybercafé: run by Sherpa entrepreneur Tsering Gyaltsen



Number of reality-TV participants to reach the summit: 2; Ted Mahon, 30, and Jesse Rickert, 30, from the Outdoor Life Network show Global Extremes




Sir Edmund Hillary’s summary of the 2003 Season: “Just sitting around in a big base camp, knocking back cans of beer, I don’t particularly regard as mountaineering.”