Nepal grants record 466 climbing permits for Mount Everest this spring

A record 466 mountaineers, including 40 from India, have been given climbing permits by the Nepal Government to scale the 8,848.86 metre Mt Everest, the highest peak in the world, this spring.

Climbers aiming to scale the peak this season are from 65 different countries including Nepal, India and China, according to data released by the Department of Tourism.

A total of 466 climbers from 43 groups have received the permit. Among them 368 are male and 98 are female, it said.

This has broken the previous record of 2021, which was 409.

The highest number of 96 climbers from China have got the permit followed by 89 from the USA and 40 from India.

Similarly, 33 climbers from Hungary, 21 from Canada, 18 from Russia and 15 from the UK among others, received the permit.

The number of climbers receiving permits from Nepal might have increased significantly this time as climbing from the Tibet side (northeast ridge route) is not permitted since the COVID-19 pandemic, Ang Tshering Sherpa, former President of Nepal Mountaineering Association, said.

It has been 70 years since humans first set their feet atop Mt Everest. Tenzing Norgay Sherpa and Edmund Hillary successfully climbed Everest on May 29, 1953.

Since then, around 7,000 national and international mountaineers have successfully scaled Everest while over 300 have lost their lives on it to date.

In 2022, 323 climbers from 44 groups obtained permission for the Everest expedition, according to the Department.

In 2019, when 380 permits were issued, overcrowding caused "traffic jams" on Everest that forced climbers to wait for hours in freezing temperatures to make the summit.