Scores of climbers are expected to make a final push to the summits of Mount  Kanchenjunga, Makalu and Annapurna over the next few days, organizers said. 

Kanchenjunga Update:

Climbing guide Mingma Gyalje Sherpa will be leading a group of eight climbers to the summit of Kanchenjunga Tuesday night, according to expedition organizer Dawa Futi Sherpa from Imagine Nepal. Five members of the group have already scaled  Dhaulagiri this season - the first team to cross the 8,000 meter mark this spring. 

“The team is expected to summit early Wednesday  morning,” Sherpa told Everest Chronicle. 

The team includes two Pakistani climbers who are out to set new records for their country. Sirbaz Khan is on his way to become the first  Pakistani climber to summit all 14 peaks above 8,000 meters, having already claimed nine summits in the series.

Shehroze Kashif secured the world record for the youngest person to summit K2 last year (at 18 years old). Now he is attempting to summit three peaks in series - Kanchenjunga, Lhotse, and Makalu. If he succeeds, he will become the youngest climber to summit the top five 8,000-meter peaks on the planet. 

Climbers from Pioneer Adventure and Seven Summit Treks are also hoping to summit later this week. “We are planning a summit push either on April 28 or May 1,” Nivesh Karki of Pioneer Adventure told Everest Chronicle .  

According to the Department of Tourism a total of 68 permits have been issued for Kanchanjunga, the world’s third highest mountain. 

Annapurna Update:

Annapurna will also likely see summits around the same time as Kanchenjunga, around April 28th, according to Lakpa Sherpa of 8K Expeditions. The rope fixing teams have completed fixing the route up to camp IV. 

8K Expeditions has six foreign clients, of which five are female climbers. One of them is the record holding Norwegian climber Kristin Harila, who plans to summit all 14 peaks in six months, starting with Annapurna. She will also attempt four 8000ers – Kanchanjunga, Makalu, Everest and Lhotse – before heading to Pakistan in mid-June. If she succeeds, she will beat the record recently set by Nirmal ‘Nims’ Purja and chronicled in the Netflix documentary film Fourteen Peaks: Nothing is Impossible.

“We have a strong team of certified guides and experienced climbing sherpas accompanying her. She wants to set a world speed record for all 14 8000 peaks,” said Lakpa, founder of 8K Expedition. 

Last year, Harila climbed Everest and Lhotse in a record 12 hours, becoming the fattest woman in the world to do so. 

British climber Adriana Brownlee is also attempting Annapurna. She has scheduled a summit push on April 28. She has already reached Camp IV. The 21-year-old mountaineer is hoping to become the youngest person to reach all 14 summits above 8000m. 

Makalu Update:

Makalu, the fifth highest mountain on Earth, has  39 climbers waiting for a favorable weather window to try for the summit. 

“Our teams have reached Camp III. So, the summit push is likely to start in two days,” said Mingma Sherpa, chairman of Seven Summit Treks, which has over 20 climbers on the mountain.  

Adrian Ballinger said that his team  plans to reach the summit on April 27th, and then ski down to basecamp. His team includes Ecuadorian mountaineers Carla Pérez, Karl Egloff and Nicolas Miranda. 

Carla is the first woman to summit both Everest and K2  without bottled oxygen in a single year and has also climbed Manaslu, Cho Oyu, Dhaulagiri and Broad Peak. If the team succeeds, Carla will become the first woman to ski down from Makalu.