The last team of the season summited Kangchenjunga this morning. Nima Rinji Sherpa became the youngest Kangchenjunga summiter ever and equaled fellow teen Alasdair McKenzie’s list of 13 8,000m summits.
McKenzie, 19, summited Cho Oyu yesterday with the Nepalese team led by Gelje Sherpa. After two unsuccessful tries in previous years, Gelje finally opened the difficult SSW Ridge route from Nepal.
McKenzie and Nima Rinji seek to become the youngest to complete the 8,000m list and have only Shisha Pangma left. That Chinese mountain will likely open for autumn climbing.
A strong sherpa team fixed the ropes on Kangchenjunga from Camp 4 as the team went up. They reached the top at 9:30 am Nepal time today. In addition to Nima Rinji, summiters were Pasang Nurbu Sherpa, Dendi Sherpa, Fura Tsering Sherpa, Phurba Kusang Sherpa, and Ang Tenji Sherpa, plus Alina Pekova of Russia.
At the time of posting this story, Anja Blancha of Germany was attempting to summit without supplementary oxygen, together with winter K2 summiter Sona Sherpa.
