Kathmandu: A Sherpa aiming to conquer Everest for the 18th time and septuagenarians battling for the title of oldest climber to reach the summit are lining up their record bids as the main climbing season opens.

Nepal this week lifted a climbing ban imposed to prevent pro-Tibet protests on the roof of the world as the Chinese Olympic torch was carried up the northern approach to the mountain from Tibet.

The main season for climbing the world's highest peak is expected to open towards the end of this month and hundreds of mountaineers, support staff and paying clients from 32 expeditions are now acclimatising for the final push.

"Now because of climate change, the season is shifting later and later. This year we expect the good weather window might open around the third week of May," said Ang Tsering Sherpa, chairman of the Nepal Mountaineering Association and an expedition organiser.

With a breathtaking 17 summits of the 8,848-metre peak already under his belt, Apa Sherpa looks likely to get to the top again, said chairman Ang Tsering. "I think Apa has a good chance. He is physically very, very fit and as long as the weather permits, he will break his own record," he said.

Last year, retired Japanese school teacher Katsusuke Yanagisawa - 71 years and two months old when he reached the summit - became the oldest man to conquer the peak. This year two men are trying to beat the record.

His countryman, 75-year-old adventurer Yuichiro Miura is currently at base camp struggling with acclimatisation - a process of making short trips up and down the lower reaches of the mountain to prepare climbers for the "death zone" above 8,000 metres, where there is just a third of the oxygen present at sea level. "I was tired all day yesterday," Miura wrote on his expedition website on Friday.
Source : PTI