By Deepak Adhikari
KATHMANDU, Nepal
With its icy slopes, fickle weather and treacherous terrain, Mount Everest poses a formidable challenge even for climbers in their prime.
But an 83-year-old Nepali British Gurkha pensioner is vying to reclaim the title of the world’s oldest person to climb the highest peak in Nepal.
Min Bahadur Sherchan, who at age 76 set the record for scaling the 8,848 peak in 2008, lost the title in 2013 to a familiar competitor, Japan's Yuichiro Miura, who was aged 80 at the time.
Sherchan was on Everest to defend his title in 2013, but had to cancel his bid due to lack of funds and bad weather.
A month-and-a-half shy of his 84th birthday, an important milestone in Hindu tradition, Sherchan will be aided by five climbing Sherpas who are in their '20s and early '30s, who have been drafted by the Himalayan Guides, the organizer of the expedition.
“I am climbing Everest to show that old people are courageous. My record will also inspire young people to pursue their dream and career,” Sherchan told reporters before flying to Lukla, the gateway of Everest, on Friday.
“Everyone talks about world peace. Through my summit, I would like to spread the message of peace and harmony. Unless there is goodwill among human beings, unity is unattainable,” he said.
Sherchan’s expedition is being funded by Non-Resident Nepali Association of the United Kingdom. According to Dhruba Bahadur Budha Magar, the organization’s representative in Nepal, their goal is to raise about $70,000.
“We have already met half of our target. We will raise the rest of the fund and pay to the expedition organizer by May 1,” Magar said.
In 2013, Sherchan’s attempt to climb Everest was thwarted by a delay in the release of the government funds. “The weather and my health also played spoilsports,” Sherchan said.
“This time around, I am fit and in excellent spirits to achieve my goal,” Sherchan, who uses a hearing aid, said.
Mingma Dorje Sherpa, 35, a veteran climbing guide with 10 Everest summits under his belt, expressed confidence that despite the age, his client was a strong climber.
“He may appear frail but he is very strong. His willpower is amazing. He recently went on a trek. I am sure he will make it to the top,” Sherpa told Anadolu Agency.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Sherchan as a British Gurkha soldier, was deployed to suppress the communist insurgency in Malaysia.
When he is not on the mountain, the patriarch of the family, with a 72-year-old wife, five daughters, two sons and 16 grandchildren, spends his day reading newspapers, meets friends and family members in Kathmandu and works for the rights of the elderly.
In Kathmandu before his departure to the Everest Base Camp, Sherchan busied himself with last-minute preparations and courtesy calls.
On Thursday morning, he prayed at a Buddhist monastery in the Bouddha neighborhood of Kathmandu.
“More prayers and offerings would be made in the base camp,” Bhim Paudel, operations manager of the Himalayan Guides, told AA.
Sherchan, who a decade ago trekked nearly 1,200 kilometers from Nepal’s east to west, will spend a week from Lukla to the Everest Base Camp, where he will join roughly 450 climbers.
Paudel of the Himalayan Guides said the expedition team would wait at the base camp for the brief weather window, usually two to three times in May, for him to make the final ascent.
If he will fish out two photographs, of British Queen Elizabeth II and Nepal’s President Ram Baran Yadav, to commemorate the occasion.
On Thursday at the offices of the state-run Department of Tourism in downtown Kathmandu, the expedition members, including Sherchan, were offered silken scarves. Tulsi Prasad Gautam, the Department’s director wished for the success of the expedition.
When asked if his latest bid on Everest was to break the record of the 82-year-old Japanese man, Sherchan said he didn’t see it that way.
“I want all human beings to achieve higher level of progress. I am not motivated by envy. I am going to break my own record, not his,” Sherchan, casually dressed in a check shirt and a baseball cap, said.
“It’s not that one has to climb Everest in order to prove oneself or to be successful. One has to have determination to achieve the goal,” Sherchan said.
Roughly 4,000 people have successfully climbed Everest since Tenzing Norgay, a Nepali, and Edmund Hillary, from New Zealand made the maiden trip to the summit in 1953.
The spring climbing season, which runs April through May, sees hundreds of climbers attempting to climb the mountain that straddles Nepal and China.
