By the standards of Himalayan mountaineering, Mount Elbrus is often dismissed as an easier prize. But for Chatur Tamang, the snow-covered volcano in southern Russia has become the mountain on which he has built a career — and now a place in climbing history.

The Nepali mountain guide reached the 5,642-metre summit of Europe's highest peak at 6.20am local time on Saturday, completing his 200th ascent in what he believes is an unprecedented achievement in world mountaineering.

Carrying the Nepali flag to the summit, Tamang marked the milestone after an extraordinary run of successive guided expeditions over the past fortnight.

He first climbed Elbrus in 2003 as an expedition member and began guiding clients on the mountain in 2012. His busiest season came in 2021, when he reached the summit 28 times in a single year. Since 2018, he has averaged more than 20 ascents annually. This season alone, after returning from the Everest expedition in late May, he has climbed Elbrus 13 times since June.

He led Malaysian climbers to the top on July 17, guided an Indian team a day later, returned with another Malaysian client on July 20 for his 197th ascent, climbed again with an international team on July 22 for his 198th, completed his 199th ascent on July 23, and sealed the landmark 200th summit on Saturday.

"I don't believe anyone has climbed Mount Elbrus this many times," Tamang said after the ascent, adding that he had meticulously recorded every climb since embarking on the project more than two decades ago.

Born into a modest family in Nepal's Solukhumbu district, home to Everest, Tamang spent his childhood herding cattle and gathering fodder before financial hardship forced him to leave school in search of work. He joined expeditions as a high-altitude porter, gradually acquiring the skills that would turn him into a professional mountain guide.

He formally entered the profession in 1995 and completed basic and advanced mountaineering courses in Darjeeling in 2001 and 2002.

The following year he relocated to Russia, where he set himself an ambitious goal: to climb Mount Elbrus 200 times.

More than two decades later, that ambition has become reality.

"It is not just for myself, but for my country," he said. "For many years Nepali guides had little identity of their own outside the Himalayas. I wanted to show that we can achieve something unique on the world stage."

Today, Tamang divides his time between Russia and Nepal. During the European climbing season he leads international expeditions on Elbrus, while in the Himalayas he guides Russian climbers on Nepal's highest peaks through his company, Chatur's Trek & Expedition.

Beyond Elbrus, Tamang has climbed Everest, Lhotse, Kanchenjunga, Cho Oyu, Manaslu, Ama Dablam, Baruntse, Island Peak and Mera Peak.

For a guide whose career began carrying other people's equipment up Himalayan slopes, the 200th ascent of Europe's highest mountain represents less a single triumph than the culmination of decades spent returning to the same summit — each climb another step towards a record few are likely to match.