KATHMANDU: A record-holding woman climber has announced that she will attempt to break her own record for the most ascents of Mount Everest this spring.

As climbers around the world prepare for the spring climbing season on the world’s highest peak from the Nepal side, Lhakpa Sherpa – popularly known as the “Mountain Queen” – told The Tourism Times that she would return to Mount Everest to try to scale the mountain for the 11th time. Lhakpa added she would try to make a double ascent if everything goes as per plan; if she climbs twice, it would be 12.

Mingma Gelu Sherpa, Managing Director of Seven Summit Adventure, said that his sister would be arriving in Nepal from the United States next week to begin her record-setting expedition.

“Lhakpa will be guiding her own client to the roof of the world as part of the Seven Summit Adventure expedition this season,” Mingma Gelu shared.

The 52-year-old mother of three broke her own world record by standing atop the roof of the world for the tenth time in 2022.

Born in Makalu VDC, Sankhuwasabha, Lhakpa is the first and only woman to have successfully scaled Mount Everest 10 times. No other woman in the world has climbed the peak so many times to date.

Lhakpa said she is climbing to inspire today’s youth and women. Lhakpa, who lives in suburban Connecticut in the US and works as a dishwasher at the Whole Foods Market in Hartford, said she has secured a few sponsors for her expedition this season.

Without any formal mountaineering training, Lhakpa – who grew up with 11 siblings – first climbed Everest from the Nepal side in 2000. “I worked as a porter when I was 15 and started climbing peaks then,” she shared.

Lhakpa, a former 7-Eleven store worker, reportedly scaled Everest eight months after the birth of her first daughter and while she was two months pregnant with her second child.

Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa, a documentary that chronicles Lhakpa Sherpa’s life and mountaineering career, has been released on Netflix. The film, which includes Nepali subtitles, highlights the risks Lhakpa took during her record-breaking Everest climbs to secure a brighter future for her daughters.

Lhakpa has achieved all of this without wealth or sponsorship. She has not only proved herself as the first Nepali woman to summit and descend Everest – she has summited Everest 10 times, by far the most of any woman worldwide, as well as the even more fearsome K2 in Pakistan.

She has also received a Guinness World Records certificate for being the woman to summit Everest the most times. The GWR certificate states: "The most ascents of Everest (female) is 10 and was achieved by Lhakpa Sherpa (Nepal) as of 12 May 2022."