Nestled in the Himalayas between Nepal and the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China, the 8,849-meter summit of Mount Everest has long stood as the ultimate pinnacle for mountaineers around the globe. This week, one of the climbing world’s most decorated guides added another chapter to his legendary career on the world’s highest peak.
Kenton Cool, a 52-year-old mountaineer hailing from southwest England, has successfully reached Everest’s summit for the 20th time, breaking his own existing record for the highest number of ascents by a non-Sherpa guide. Contrary to his 2023 announcement that he would retire from major Everest expeditions after one more climb to focus on smaller peaks, the veteran climber now says he has no plans to step away from the mountain any time soon.
After flying back to Nepal’s capital Kathmandu following his successful summit push on Sunday, Cool told reporters he is already planning future ascents. “Maybe another two or three more times,” he said of his expected future trips to the peak.
Cool’s 20th ascent came amid a chaotic 2024 spring climbing season on Nepal’s southern Everest route, marked by unexpected delays and historic crowds. A unstable, dangerously positioned serac along the standard climbing path forced expedition teams to hold their summit pushes for days, leaving only a narrow window of favorable weather for all permitted climbers to attempt the peak. When the window opened, the sector saw unprecedented traffic: on Wednesday alone, 274 climbers successfully summited via the southern route, setting a new single-day record for the Nepali side of the mountain. China closed its northern Everest route for 2024, leaving the southern Nepali path as the only accessible route for climbers this year, amplifying congestion on the mountain.
Despite the reported overcrowding, Cool said his team encountered no major issues during their attempt, which he completed on Friday. “We had no issues. We had no crowds, we had a great summit,” he noted.
This year’s surge in summits has reignited long-running debates over crowd management and regulation on Everest. Fellow record-holding Everest veteran Kami Rita Sherpa, a Nepali Sherpa guide who holds the all-time record for most Everest ascents, has called for official caps on the number of annual climbing permits, warning that overcrowding creates unnecessary safety risks for everyone on the mountain. Nepali authorities issued 494 individual climbing permits for this season, with each permitted climber accompanied by one Sherpa guide resulting in nearly 1,000 people attempting the peak from the southern side.
Cool, however, pushed back on calls for hard permit limits, arguing that the solution lies not in restricting overall numbers but in enforcing higher standards for climber experience. Currently, Nepal’s only core requirement for obtaining an Everest permit is payment of the $15,000 permit fee, with no mandatory check of a climber’s prior high-altitude experience. While Nepali officials have discussed introducing new regulations that would require climbers to demonstrate proven high-altitude mountaineering experience before gaining a permit, those rules have not yet taken effect.
Cool argued that permit caps are unnecessary, and that climbing companies should take more responsibility to vet the experience of the clients they accept, while adjusting summit push timing to spread out traffic more effectively. “It is the various companies being a little more diligent on who they take, so they are making sure there is the experience of the climbers and then just being a little more careful with when they want to climb,” he explained.