It was a big weekend on Mt. Everest – everyone’s patience paid off and may climbers made it to the top of both the North and South Summits.We have been following International Mountain Guides for a couple of weeks, and their update is below, in addition there were several other notable summits this weekend.

Viewed from the summit, IMG climbers take the final few steps to the top of Mt. Everest, 29,035'. (photo: Willie Benegas)

Check out the piece below courtesy of the Adventure Blog.

As expected, the winds died, the sky cleared, and the weather window opened on schedule on Everest today, giving climbers access to the summit from both sides of the mountain. There appears to have been a lot of summits, although as of this writing, I haven’t heard an estimate yet. There were however, two summits of note that I wanted to touch on this morning.

First, on the North Side, 13-year old Jordan Romero successfully reached the top of Everest, setting a new record for the youngest person to accomplish that feat. Jordan has received a ton of media attention prior to the climb, and is sure to receive a lot more today, and while I’m definitely not in favor of these young kids climbing 8000 meter peaks, I’m glad that his climb is over, and he is down safe today. I want to extend a congratulations to Jordan and his whole team. He now has just Mt. Vinson in Antarctica to summit to nab all of the Seven Summits. He’ll head for that peak in the fall.

Apa Sherpa also topped out on the mountain, via the South Side, claiming his 20th summit of the mountain. Apa reached the summit at 8:34 AM local time today, extending his own record for most times on top of the world. Apa is climbing to raise awareness of his own charity, the Apa Sherpa Foundation and to raise awareness of climate change. Congratulations to Apa as well!

In addition, Eric Simonson from International Mountain Guides posted these updates over the weekend.

May 23rd:

All 15 IMG climbers and guides, and also their 15 sherpas climbing today, have now reached the summit and are on the way down. All that patience has paid off with a gorgeous summit day and not too much wind up high. We are super proud of all these climbers and wish them a safe trip down. The second IMG team is making good progress up to the Col from Camp 3 in preparation for their summit attempt tomorrow.

Everest's summit ridge. The lower peak with a climber visible is the South Summit, followed by the traverse to the Hillary Step with climbers visible on top of the Hillary Step. Lhotse is the big peak visible directly behind and to the left of the South Summit. (photo: Justin Merle)

May 24th:

We are proud to report that John, Ryan, Lei, Mike, Justin and their four sherpas have summited and are now on the way down to the Col. Robert, Chris, and Peter turned back on the ascent from near the Balcony and have already reached back to the Col and are now descending to Camp 2.

The climbers who summitted yesterday and spent the night on the Col are also making their way down to Camp 2. The weather up high on Everest has been light winds with some clouds and a few flakes. Down lower there was more snowfall overnight, but the sun is now starting to burn through. We have a group of Sherpas on their way to the Col from C2 to start carrying down the empty oxygen bottles and equipment. We’ll keep you posted on the team’s progress.

—Eric Simonson, IMG Director