Photo : Collected
A record number of climbers are gathered in Tibet to complete mountaineering's pinnacle achievement, summiting the world's tallest 14 peaks.
Only about 50 climbers have climbed all mountain peaks above 8,000 metres (26,250 feet), a feat that took most years, or even decades, to complete.
About 20 are vying for the record books this month, some spurred by a blockbuster Netflix documentary giving the endeavour a wider profile.
Technological advancements have made the feat easier to accomplish.
"We are growing as a community, and we are representing mountaineering all over the world," Pakistani climber Shehroze Kashif, 22, told AFP.
"I think that's great... they are completing their dream, as I am."
It took Italian climber Reinhold Messner 16 years from his initial summit to become the first person in the world considered to have climbed all 14 peaks in 1986.
But most of the climbers assembled in the Chinese Himalayas at the base camp of Mount Shisha Pangma only began their attempts within the past few years.
They have already summited the 13 other highest peaks, located in the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges, straddling Nepal, Pakistan, Tibet and India.
Many have been waiting to scale the 8,027-metre-high (26,335 feet) Tibetan peak since last year, when China closed the mountain to climbers after two American women and their Nepali guides were killed in an avalanche.
Messenger/Disha
