Mountaineering in Nepal - Base Camp Breakdown

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Outside Magazine August 2003

Base Camp Breakdown
Running the numbers on the world's tallest mountain


	Start of the Everest Marathon (AP Photo/Gurinder Osan)

Total population at Base Camp: 1,000
Number of expeditions: 40
Tents at Base Camp: more than 500
Summits: 239 (the most in one season)
Busiest day: May 22; 109 summits (the most in one day)
Nations represented at the top: 23
Deaths: 3

New record, oldest person to summit: Yuichiro Miura, 70 years 222 days, Japan
New record, youngest person to summit: Ming Kipa, 15, Nepal
New Base-Camp-to-top speed record: Lakpa Gelu Sherpa, 36, Nepal; ten hours 46 minutes
New record, most summits: Apa Sherpa, 43, Nepal; 13 summits
New record, highest-altitude use of a clothes iron: 17,848 feet, by John Roberts and Ben Gibbons, UK
First one-armed man to summit: Gary Guller, 37, Austin, Texas
New Record, World's highest saloon: the Base Camp Bar (sold out its entire stock of alcohol its first night)
New Record, World's highest Marathon: Everest Marathon, May 19

First Kuwaiti to summit: Zed Al Refai, 34
First Estonian: Alar Sikk, 37
First black African: Sibusiso Vilane, 32, Swaziland
First pair of sisters: Lakpa Sherpa and Ming Kipa, Nepal
First former governor: Gary Johnson, 50, New Mexico
First live broadcast from the summit: China Mountain Climbing Team, May 21
First Base Camp cybercafé: run by Sherpa entrepreneur Tsering Gyaltsen

Number of reality-TV participants to reach the summit: 2; Ted Mahon, 30, and Jesse Rickert, 30, from the Outdoor Life Network show Global Extremes

Sir Edmund Hillary's summary of the 2003 Season: "Just sitting around in a big base camp, knocking back cans of beer, I don't particularly regard as mountaineering."

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