(20 May 2025)
RESTRCITION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kathmandu, Nepal – 20 May 2025
1. Record-setting British climber Kenton Cool arriving at Kathmandu airport
2. Cool (in red top) carrying bags with climbing gear
3. Cool greeted by friends on arrival at the airport
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Kenton Cool, record-setting British climber:
“I am 51 now, I have been coming here since 2004 to climb Everest. I have at least one more climb for next year, maybe 20 or 21 after that I start climbing other mountains in Nepal.”
5. Wide of journalists at the airport
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Kenton Cool, record-setting British climber:
“Mountaineering is an amazing sport, which is open to everybody, but you just need to be part of it responsibly and we see some people coming to Everest who perhaps don’t have the experience that they should. I don’t think the Nepalese should necessarily limit numbers, maybe they should look at or the operator or the guide should look at the experience of the people they have before they come to Mount Everest.”
7. Cool getting greeted with scarf by a friend
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Kenton Cool, record-setting British climber:
“(The mountain itself) is relatively unchanged. There is the fact that the glaciers are shrinking, they are getting smaller, there are more rockfall perhaps now which is a big concern. Global warming is a real thing and it is affecting glaciers in Europe, South America, in the Himalayas. This is going to be a big problem in the next 10 years for sure.”
9. Cool waking out of the airport
10. Getting into waiting vehicle
11. Waving at the journalists
STORYLINE:
A British climber who scaled Mount Everest for the 19th time, breaking his own record for the most ascents of the world’s highest peak by a non-Sherpa guide, returned from the mountain on Tuesday and said he is already planning his next attempt.
Kenton Cool, 51, from southwest England, scaled the 8,849-meter (29,032-foot) summit on Sunday before flying on a helicopter with his clients back to the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu.
“I am 51 now, and I have been coming here since 2004 to climb Everest,” Cool said at Kathmandu’s airport on Tuesday. “I have at least one more climb for next year — maybe 20 or 21 (total). After that I’ll start climbing other mountains in Nepal.”
Cool has scaled Mount Everest almost every year since 2004.
He was unable to climb it in 2014 because the season was canceled after 16 Sherpa guides were killed in an avalanche, and again in 2015 when an earthquake triggered an avalanche that killed 19 people. The 2020 climbing season was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Only Nepali Sherpa guides have scaled the peak more times than Cool. Kami Rita holds the record for the most successful ascents of Mount Everest at 30 times. He is currently on the mountain and is expected to attempt to reach the top in the next few days.
Cool said his climb was smooth and that he faced no problems, but he noticed that many climbers were trying to reach the peak on the same day.
Hundreds of climbers and their guides are on the mountain during the popular spring climbing season.
“Mountaineering is an amazing sport which is open to everybody, but you just need to be part of it responsibly and we see some people coming to Everest — who perhaps they don’t have the experience that they should,” Cool said, adding that it was not necessary to limit the number of climbers each season.
AP video shot by Upendra Man Singh
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