KATHMANDU: A group of 14 Nepali and eight foreign climbers have made a rare ascent of the main summit of Mt. Manaslu. This is the eighth highest mountain which the climbers had failed to scale since 1976.

First ascended in 1956, the main summit of the mountain only has been scaled once. But climbers on September 27 achieved the feat after a gap of four and a half-decade. Because of the sharp edge like ridge on the top of the 8,167 meters, climbers earlier were only able to reach the fore-summit. Fore summit lies 6-7 meters below the true summit.

Breaking the earlier record, a team led by Mingma G, one of the members of the K2 winter ascent in January, stood atop the peak on September 27. This announcement was made by the leader of the expedition team on Facebook.

“I hope there will be no more fore-summits in the future. The top is always top, no more ups, everything below you. It was not easy. The team gathered at 8,100 meters, a place where people usually stop because they can’t climb to the summit because of the tricky ridge and risk. Then, we traversed down a little below and again climbed to the main summit,” Mingma G wrote in his post.

Nepal’s Department of Tourism has issued permits to 171 climbers for Mount Manaslu this season which lies in Gorkha district of Central Nepal. Along with, a Nepali woman mountaineer and 19 other team members have scaled the world’s eighth tallest peak, Mount Dhaulagiri, at 5:00 on Friday morning marking it the first successful ascent to the Mt Dhaulagiri from a Nepali woman.

Purnima Shrestha climbed the 8,167-metre peak located at Dhaulagiri Rural Municipality-4 in Myagdi district. Shrestha and her team had left for Mt Dhaulagiri on September 18 from Marpha of Mustang district with the management of Seven Summit Trekking Company, Kathmandu.

Trekking Company’s proprietor Mingma Sherpa said: “This is the first ascent to Mt Dhaulagiri by a Nepali woman. Prior to this, there is no record of Nepali woman climbing to Mt Dhaulagiri before.” Sherpa, however, said that it is yet to be confirmed whether Maya Sherpa and other members of the expedition team reached the top of Mt Dhaulagiri.

Purnima, who is a photojournalist by profession, had climbed Mt Annapurna-I on April 16. Likewise, she has already climbed the world’s tallest peak Mt Everest, Mt Manaslu and Mt Amadablam. (ANI)