Kami Rita

Kami Rita (born 1970) is a Nepali Sherpa guide who, since May 2018, has held the record for most ascents to the summit of Mount Everest. Most recently, he scaled the mountain for a 24th time on 21 May 2019, eclipsing his record set 15 May 2019. His father was among the first professional Sherpa guides after Everest was opened to foreign mountaineers in 1950. His brother, also a guide, scaled Everest 17 times.

As of May 2019, he was employed by Seven Summits Treks, a company that arranges climbing expeditions. Prior to 2018, he had been employed by an American firm, Alpine Ascents International.

In August 2019, he is serving as a Brand Ambassador and the Chief Adventure Consultant of Himalayan Glacier Adventure and Travel Company. He had no plans to retire as long as his body is physically able to handle the climbing.

On 20 May 2018, at age 48, Kami Rita became the first person in the world to climb Everest 22 times, achieving the record of the most summits on the 8,850-meter (29,035-foot) peak. In April of the year, he told the news media that he planned to scale Everest 25 times before retirement, "not just for myself but for my family, the Sherpa people and for my country, Nepal."

In 2018, Kami Rita told a journalist that the government does not support the Sherpas. "We are famous around the world. Many foreigners know us, but our government doesn’t care about us". He said that when Ang Rita Sherpa was hospitalised in Kathmandu in 2017 after a brain haemorrhage the government provided no support. Although climbing is safer than in the past because of superior equipment and weather forecasts, the occupation is still dangerous, he told a reporter in 2018. (the 2014 Mount Everest ice avalanche killed 16 Sherpas; in 2015, 10 Sherpas died at the Everest Base Camp after the avalanches in the wake of the April 2015 Nepal earthquake. In total, 118 Sherpas have died on Everest between 1921 and 2018.) "The crevasses are deep and the slopes are unpredictable," Kami Rita said. An April 2018 report by NPR stated that Sherpas account for one-third of Everest deaths.

In 2018, Kami Rita was earning about $10,000 for each Everest climb because of his extensive previous experience. The highest peaks in Nepal are safe only around May of each year; in the autumn, he guides clients up the country's smaller peaks.

A 2018 report stated that Kami Rita lives with his wife, Lakpa Jangmu, and two children in Kathmandu. He has ensured that his children are getting an education to enable them to choose occupations that are less dangerous than guiding mountaineers. "We were illiterate and poor and there were no other means of survival [back then]. As a result, we were compelled to climb dangerous mountains to eke out a living," he told a journalist.

In another 2018 report, Lakpa Jangmu is quoted as saying that she wished that her husband would retire from mountaineering. "I keep telling him we could look for other jobs, start a small business. "But he does not listen to me at all." She also confirmed that their children will not become mountain guides.

In 2017, Kami Rita was the third person to ascend to the summit of Everest 21 times, sharing this record with Apa Sherpa and Phurba Tashi Sherpa. The latter two subsequently retired.

There is also another Kami Rita Sherpa who works on Everest, and had completed his 16th summit in 2017 with Adventure Consultants.

Kami Rita was born on 17 January, 1970 and grew up in a small village, Thame in the Solukhumbu district, living with his large family in a one-room house. The village was also the home of other Sherpas, including Tenzing Norgay who guided Sir Edmund Hillary to the summit in 1953. In his youth, he had considered becoming a monk and spent some time at the Thame Dechen Chokhorling monastery but decided not to proceed with this vocation. According to Kami Rita's brother Lakpa Rita, Kami's first work on a mountain was in 1992, assisting a Base Camp cook. Another report, however, states that he was already working as a porter, transporting gear to the Everest base camp, at age 12. By age 24, he had scaled Everest.