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7-Eleven Worker Becomes First Woman To Climb Everest 7 Times

She broke her own record for most summits by a woman.
In this photograph taken on April 13, 2016, Nepalese mountaineer Lakpa Sherpa prepares her equipment during an interview with AFP in Kathmandu.The daughter of a yak herder, Lhakpa Sherpa worked as a porter and kitchen hand on trekking and mountaineering expeditions when she was young, before climbing solo. Generations of men from Nepal's famed Sherpa community have climbed the Himalayas, while their wives and daughters have traditionally kept the home fires burning. But in a sign of changing times, a string of Sherpa women are now breaking records themselves, not only on 8,848-metre (29,029-foot) high Everest but other dangerous peaks. / AFP / PRAKASH MATHEMA / TO GO WITH AFP STORY NEPAL-MOUNTAINEERING-GENDER-QUAKE,FEATURE BY AMMU KANNAMPILLY (Photo credit should read PRAKASH MATHEMA/AFP/Getty Images)
PRAKASH MATHEMA via Getty Images
In this photograph taken on April 13, 2016, Nepalese mountaineer Lakpa Sherpa prepares her equipment during an interview with AFP in Kathmandu.The daughter of a yak herder, Lhakpa Sherpa worked as a porter and kitchen hand on trekking and mountaineering expeditions when she was young, before climbing solo. Generations of men from Nepal's famed Sherpa community have climbed the Himalayas, while their wives and daughters have traditionally kept the home fires burning. But in a sign of changing times, a string of Sherpa women are now breaking records themselves, not only on 8,848-metre (29,029-foot) high Everest but other dangerous peaks. / AFP / PRAKASH MATHEMA / TO GO WITH AFP STORY NEPAL-MOUNTAINEERING-GENDER-QUAKE,FEATURE BY AMMU KANNAMPILLY (Photo credit should read PRAKASH MATHEMA/AFP/Getty Images)
PRAKASH MATHEMA via Getty Images

By Gopal Sharma

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - A 42-year-old woman born in Nepal climbed Mount Everest for the seventh time on Friday, breaking her own record for the most summits of the world's highest mountain by any woman, a hiking official said.

Lhakpa Sherpa, who works in a 7-Eleven store in Connecticut, reached the 8,850-meter (29,035-foot) peak from the Tibetan side, said Rajiv Shrestha of the 7 Summits Adventure company that organized her expedition.

"She has broken her own record," Shrestha told Reuters. She was accompanied to the top by aNepali guide.

Three hours later, eight members of a Russian team and eight of guides also climbed from the same northern route, he said.

Lhakpa Sherpa, one of the 11 children of a Nepali family, was born in eastern Sankhuwasabha district where the world's fifth highest mountain, Makalu, is located.

Two other Sherpa climbers share between them a record for 21 ascents of Everest, the maximum climbs by men.

More than 330 climbers have climbed Everest from the Nepali side this month after expeditions were forced off the world's tallest peak by last year's devastating earthquake that killed at least 18 people at Base Camp.

In total, 9,000 people were killed across Nepal in the 7.8 magnitude quake, the worst disaster in the country's recorded history.

(Reporting by Gopal Sharma; Editing by Douglas Busvine and Nick Macfie)

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