Everest logjam fails to thwart climber's record 14-peak bid

Former Gurkha soldier Nirmal Purja remains on target to conquer the world's 14 highest mountains in a record-breaking seven months despite death-defying queues on the biggest peak of them all.

Waiting for more than seven hours last week to get to the top of Everest and then back to the safety of his camp -- in a pile-up that he documented in a photo that has gone viral -- injected doubts into Purja's minute-by-minute strategy.

"My plan was to climb Everest and Lhotse as fast as possible, breaking my own previous record but that day, I was stuck in traffic," Purja told AFP back in the comfort of Kathmandu.

In 2017, the ex-British special forces member climbed the two mountains in a record 10 hour and 15 minutes.

"I sat four hours on the way up and three and half hours on the way down and that kind of made me (worry) like I won't be able to achieve the record," he said.

In the end, the phenomenal 35-year-old climber completed the 8,848-metre (29,029-foot) Everest, Lhotse at 8,516 metres and the 8,485-metre Mount Makalu -- three of the world's five highest mountains -- in 48 hours and 30 minutes, according to his backup team.

This season, Purja has climbed six mountains above 8,000 metres in 31 days.

But the jams on Everest have been blamed for at least four of the 11 climber deaths on the peak.

The iconic photo Purja snapped of the queue of mountaineers leading up to the summit has triggered calls for better management of the crowds and screening of climbers to avoid fatalities.

"Of course there are certain worries -- you are cold and you cannot move," said Purja.

Other climbers said that some of those who attempted to climb Everest were grossly unprepared.

Nepal issued a record 381 Everest permits this season and a short weather window resulted in some teams waiting several hours in the "dead zone", running out of oxygen and risking fatal exhaustion. Purja was better prepared.