Kami Rita Sherpa Summited Everest 32 Times. We Walked Up With His Crew

The people who fix the ropes, pitch the tents and cook the dinners at Everest Base Camp walk the same seven-day trail you would, and a Sherpa guide has now stood on the summit 32 times. Place: Khumbu valley to Everest Base Camp (South), Nepal, 5,364 m Crew: about 2,000 residents at base camp in a spring season (Nepali Times, 2021 count); Nepal now requires one Sherpa or guide for every two foreign climbers on 8,000 m peaks Rotation: seven days up from Kathmandu by way of Lukla and Namche Bazaar; a climbing season at camp runs about two months Distance from help: the Himalayan Rescue Association's Pheriche aid post sits at about 4,250 m and is staffed by volunteer doctors twice a year; a separate clinic has run at base camp since 2003 It starts in Kathmandu and a short flight to Lukla's sloped strip, built in 1964 under Hillary's supervision on land bought from local Sherpas for US$2,650. In the teahouses the day ends at one central stove, with dal bhat and unheated rooms upstairs. Namche Bazaar, at 3,440 m, has air at about two-thirds of sea-level pressure, and porters on the trail carry loads that average close to their own body weight. Up at base camp each team has its own cook, who prepares three meals a day, and Sherpa crews pitch the dining, cooking and sleeping tents; a sleeping tent is about two metres square. Before any client arrives, the icefall doctors have opened the route with ladders and rope. The last part is the question in the title: what the published studies on Tibetan and Sherpa physiology say about living and working above 8,000 m, and what they do not say. On this shift: Kami Rita Sherpa, guide, 32 summits as of 17 May 2026 - "As he never climbed Everest, I wanted to do it for him" (Onlinekhabar, 2018), about his father, a porter. On this shift: Nima Rinji Sherpa, mountaineer, finished all 14 of the 8,000 m peaks at 18 - "We are not just guides; we are trailblazers" (PTI via Kashmir Reader, 2024). On this shift: Sanu Sherpa, guide, 47 - "It is only as a Sherpa guide that I can get employment" (AP via The Himalayan Times, 2022). On this shift: Edmund Hillary, 1953 - "We agreed not to tell who stepped on the summit first" (National Geographic Adventure, 2003). The ledger: sleep in a tent about 2 x 2 m at 5,364 m, or an unheated teahouse room lower down · pay about US$10,000 for a Kami Rita Everest climb against roughly US$700 a year for the average Nepali (AP, 2018) · food dal bhat in the valley, three cook-prepared meals a day at camp · distance seven days' walk, with the nearest staffed aid post at about 4,250 m Read the record: Grocott et al. — Arterial blood gases and oxygen content in climbers on Mount Everest (New England Journal of Medicine, 2009) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19129... Horscroft et al. — Metabolic basis to Sherpa altitude adaptation (PNAS, 2017) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles... Huerta-Sanchez et al. — Altitude adaptation in Tibetans caused by introgression of Denisovan-like DNA (Nature, 2014) https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13408 Beall et al. — Tibetan EPAS1 study (PNAS, 2010) via ScienceDaily https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases... Minetti, Formenti, Ardigò — Himalayan porter energetics (Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 2006) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles... Monika Deupala — Mt Everest city (Nepali Times, 2021) https://nepalitimes.com/mt-everest-city Himalayan Rescue Association — Pheriche aid post https://www.himalayanrescue.org.np/hr... Roberts — 50 Years on Everest (National Geographic Adventure, 2003) https://www.nationalgeographic.com/ad... Chappell — 55-year-old Kami Rita Sherpa breaks his own record (NPR, 2025) https://www.kunc.org/npr-news/2025-05... IANS — Kami Rita Sherpa 32nd Everest summit (2026) https://ianslive.in/everest-legend-ka... Vega — Everest commercialization and Sherpas (CBS 60 Minutes, 2025) https://www.cbsnews.com/news/everest-... Arnette — Everest by the Numbers, 2026 edition https://www.alanarnette.com/2026/01/2... Chapters 0:00 Kami Rita Sherpa Summits Everest 5:15 Lukla's Uphill Runway 9:47 Tenzing and Hillary Stand Together 13:56 Namche Bazaar at 3440 Metres 18:10 Born in Thame 23:12 The Mountain Shows Itself 28:00 Dingboche on Day Five 33:15 Everest Permit Now Costs More 36:31 Air Pressure Above Eight Thousand Metres