A Kenyan climber dies on Everest while trying to reach the summit without supplemental oxygen

LONDON — Kenyan climber Joshua Cheruiyot Kirui, who went missing with his guide Wednesday morning on Mount Everest, has been found dead, officials said Thursday.

Kirui’s body was found 62 feet, or about 19 meters, below the summit of Everest, Nepal’s Tourism Department said.

Kirui had been on a mission to reach the world’s highest peak without supplemental oxygen, attempting to become the first African to achieve the feat. It disappeared over the Hillary Steps.

“An attempt without oxygen comes with its special preparations and risks,” Kirui wrote on Instagram before his summit attempt. “Finally. Tonight we head up. Summit rotation. After 10 days of base camp.”

He was accompanied by a Nepalese mountaineer and guide, Nawang Sherpa, whose fate remains unknown. Search teams were sent to the mountain.

Kirui wrote that he had made extensive preparations for his summit: “Nawang Sherpa will carry an emergency oxygen bottle for use; if I turn off the lights or if I go bananas. If they are banned, bad weather, the body limit has been reached. : when I realize I’m not superhuman.”

Kirui’s death brings the number on Everest this week to at least three, following the deaths of two Mongolian climbers who went missing on May 12.

British climber Daniel Paterson and his Nepalese guide Pas Tenji Sherpa also remain missing after their expedition was hit by icefall on Everest’s north face on Tuesday.

“I’m patiently waiting for a window at the top,” Paterson – a fitness trainer from Wakefield, UK – wrote in an Instagram post before disappearing.

With an elevation of 8,848 meters, Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world. About 800 people attempt to climb the mountain annually, and officials said more than 450 climbers have already scaled the mountain from the Nepalese side this climbing season. More than 100,000 people visit the Himalayan Sagarmatha National Park in northeastern Nepal each year.

Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler were the first men to climb Everest without supplemental oxygen, accomplishing the feat in May 1978.

In 2022, James Kagambi became the first Kenyan to summit Everest, reaching the summit at the age of 62.

“His indomitable will and passion for mountaineering will forever be an inspiration,” Everest Today wrote of Kirui. “We extend our sincere condolences to his family and friends at this time of grief.”