81-year-old gives up trying to set Mount Everest record

KATMANDU, Nepal An 81-year-old Nepalese man has abandoned his attempt to climb Mount Everest, leaving an 80-year-old Japanese mountaineer with the record as the oldest person to scale the world's highest mountain.

Team member Dame said Wednesday that Min Bahadur Sherchan turned back Tuesday because weather conditions were worsening late in the spring climbing season for the Himalayas. He would have made the attempt sooner, but had funding problems that were resolved only last week.

Sherchan became the oldest Everest climber in 2008 at age 76. He held the record until last week, when Japanese climber Yuichiro Miura scaled the 29,035-foot mountain.

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Word of Sherchan giving up his efforts happened to come as Nepal was celebrating the 60th anniversary of the conquest of Everest, and honoring climbers who followed the footsteps of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.

Among them is Italian Reinhold Messner, who was the first to scale Everest without using bottled oxygen and the first to climb all the 14 highest peaks in the world.

Nepalese officials offered flower garlands and scarfs and were taken around the city on horse-drawn chariots followed by hundreds of people who marched holding banners to mark the anniversary.

Money had been a big hurdle for Sherchan. He had no sponsors and it took until last week for the Nepal government to follow through on a promise to give him a grant and waive the $70,000 climbing permit fee.

By the time his financial problems eased, the weather had gotten worse. The popular spring climbing season ends in May on Everest. Monsoons sweep the country in June, making climbing high peaks impossible.

Reports said the route has become unstable because heat has made the slopes slippery and melted the ice chunks where ladders are fixed and ropes are tied. It has also been raining for the past few days in Nepal.

More than 500 climbers scaled the peak last week during the window of favorable weather conditions, but most climbers had packed up and left the mountain by the time Sherchan was able to begin.

Dame, who uses only one name, said conditions were too dangerous for Sherchan to attempt the climb, and that it would have been difficult to get help had there been an emergency. He turned back soon after leaving the 5,300-meter-elevation base camp and was back in Katmandu, the capital, on Wednesday.

Sherchan's family members said Sherchan was planning to rest for now and hold a press conference in a few days to give his reasons for quitting the climb.