At the age of 80, Japanese mountain climber and adventurer Yuichiro Miura reached the summit of Mount Everest on Thursday. But he may not hold that title for long:
There are reports that Nepalese climber Min Bahadur Sherchan, 81, is planning an assault on the world’s highest peak next week, despite some recent intestinal problems.
Sherchan frustrated Miura’s record-setting ambitions once before when, in May 2008, Miura conquered the mountain at the age of 75, only to arrive a day after Sherchan's ascent at age 76 years and 340 days.
This is Miura’s third ascent of the 29,028-foot peak. He also earned the oldest climber title in 2003, at age 70, a milestone broken four years later when fellow Japanese climber Katsusuke Yanagisawa ascended at age 71.
But at least for now, Miura is expressing nothing but satisfaction at his accomplishment.
"This is the best feeling in the world,” an entry said on his Facebook page. “How could I have come so far at the world's oldest age of 80, I’ve never felt like this in my life. But I've never been more exhausted than this." [...]
The veteran adventurer also hit the spotlight in 1970 when he became the first person to ski down Everest with help from a parachute, a feat documented in the 1975 Academy Award-winning documentary "The Man Who Skied Down Everest."
(Photo: AFP)