Min Bahadur Sherchan (r. , with expedition leader Shiva Bahadur Sapkota)

He wanted to regain the age record, now he has died in the Base Camp at the feet of Mount Everest. Min Bahadur Sherchan passed away on Saturday afternoon local time, said Gyanendra Shrestha, an official of the Ministry of Tourism, who is staying in the Base Camp on the Nepali side of the highest mountain on Earth. The doctors, according to Shrestha, suspected a heart attack as the cause of death. It is the second fatality of this spring’s climbing season on Mount Everest, after Ueli Steck’s ​fall to death on Nuptse last Sunday.

Two failed attempts

After his Everest summit success in 2008

Sherchan wanted to snatch away the Everest age record from Yuichiro Miura. In 2013, the Japanese, then aged 80, had replaced Sherchan as “Everest Methuselah”. For five years, the Nepalese had previously led the record list after standing on the highest mountain on earth at the age of 76 years and 340 days. Already shortly after Miura’s summit success, towards the end of the Everest spring season 2013, and then 2015 too, Min Bahadur had tried to get back the record. In 2013, however, the Nepalese had fallen above Everest Base Camp and suffered a rib injury. In addition, no weather window had opened at this late stage of season. Two years later, the devastating earthquake in Nepal with almost 9,000 deaths had led to the cancellation of all activities on Everest.

No Everest age limit in Nepal

Sherchan before the expedition

As a young man, Sherchan had been a soldier in the Gurkha regiment. Later he had earned his money as a farmer, construction worker and finally hotel owner. “I may be old in terms of age but I still have a young courage,” Sherchan had said before the expedition. “I will reach the summit of Everest, whatever may come.” It was also due to the chronic drowsiness of the Nepali government that Sherchan was allowed to climb Everest this spring. Once again, the responsible people in Kathmandu had not managed to amend the “Mountaineering Expedition Regulation”, which is in force since 2002. Last year’s draft  included a ban on mountaineers older than 75 years.