Octogenarian becomes oldest to reach Himalaya top

KATHMANDU - An 80-year-old Japanese mountain climber who has had four heart surgeries reached the top of Himalaya Mountains on May 23 becoming the oldest person to conquer the world's highest mountain.

Yuichiro Miura, who took the standard southeast ridge route pioneered by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay 60 years ago, reached the top of the 8,848 metre (29,028 feet) mountain at roughly 9:00 am local time (0300 GMT). He was accompanied by three other Japanese, including his son, and six Nepali sherpas.

"It feels great," he told family members and supporters gathered in Tokyo by satellite phone from the summit.

Miura, who first climbed the Mountains in 2003 and repeated the feat five years later, takes the oldest climber record from Nepal's Min Bahadur Sherchan, who reached the summit at the age of 76 in 2008.

"The record is not so important to me," Miura said in April, before setting off. "It is important to get to the top."

Miura spent the night at 8,500 metres (27,887 ft) at the Balcony in the so-called "death zone" before launching his final ascent, rather than the 8,000 metre South Col which is used as a resting place by most climbers before the summit climb, said Gyanendra Shrestha, a Nepal Tourism Ministry official.

His ascent had been watched closely in Japan, with daily broadcasts of phone calls and photographs from the climb - including one night when he and his fellow climbers drank green Japanese tea and ate hand-rolled sushi in their tent high on the mountain's side.

A noted adventurer, Miura skied down Himalaya Mountains from the South Col in 1970, a feat that became the subject of a documentary. He has since skied down the highest mountains on each of the seven continents, following the tradition of his late father Keizo, who skied down Europe's Mont Blanc at the age of 99.

He trained for the Mountains climb by hiking in Tokyo with weighted packs and working out on a treadmill in a special low-oxygen room in his home.

Nearly 4,000 climbers have reached the summit since the pioneering May 1953 climb, while 240 have lost their lives on its slopes.

Miura is not the first record-setter on Himalaya this climbing season.

Raha Moharrak became the first Saudi Arabian woman to conquer the peak, while Sudarshan Gautam, a 30-year-old Nepali-born Canadian who lost both arms in an accident, became the first double amputee to summit.

Miura's record may only be his to savour briefly. Nepal's Min Bahadur Sherchan, now 81, plans to start climbing the peak this coming weekend.