More than 400 climbers get permission to scale Mt. Everest

Permission has been issued to 402 climbers from 53 countries as of April 27 for climbing Mt Everest, the highest peak in the world, this spring, according to the Department of Tourism said. Seventy-four of the climbers are women.

According to the department permissions have been granted to 41 expeditions so far. In the same season last year, a total of 414 people, including 75 women and 339 men from 41 mountaineering expeditions, had taken permission to scale the 8,848.86 mt peak.

Royalty of Rs 684 million has been collected from the permits issued for climbing various mountain peaks this year. From Everest alone 595.5 million royalty have been received this year, according to Liladhar Adhikari a senior official at the Department of Tourism.

Altogether 987 people from 105 teams have taken permission to climb 26 mountain peaks in this season, he further informed. So far, more than 8,000 Nepalese and foreign climbers have summitted the Everest.