Mount Everest: Min Bahadur Sherchan dies attempting record
Mr Sherchan had a long rivalry with a Japanese climber
An 85-year-old Nepali man who was attempting to become the oldest person to climb Mount Everest has died at base camp, Nepali officials say.
Min Bahadur Sherchan, a former British Gurkha soldier, was trying to reclaim the record from Japan's Yuichiro Miura, who climbed Everest aged 80 in 2013.
Mr Miura broke Mr Sherchan's own record set as a 76-year-old in 2008.
It comes a week after Swiss climber Ueli Steck, 40, died as he prepared to climb the mountain.
Mr Sherchan died at base camp on Saturday afternoon, officials at Nepal's tourism office said. Doctors suspect he suffered a heart attack, the Kathmandu Post newspaper reported .
His long rivalry with Mr Miura - a year his junior - included a 2013 attempt to reclaim the record aged 81 that had to be abandoned after late spring weather conditions worsened.
In 2015 he was on his way to base camp for another attempt when a devastating earthquake struck the country, forcing him and many other climbers to abandon their plans.
"I want to climb Everest to set a record so that it will inspire people to dream big," he told German news agency DPA in March. "This will instil a sense of pride among old people like me."
"My climb will demonstrate that age doesn't stop you from realising your goal."
Mr Sherchan seen doing yoga in April ahead of the climb
Mr Sherchan began climbing in 1960, when he ascended Mount Dhaulagiri, the world's seventh-highest mountain at 8,167m (26,795 ft), the Telegraph newspaper reported .
However he was already 72 when he thought about climbing Mount Everest. To prepare, he walked 1,200km (745 miles) across Nepal in 2003, DPA said.
He told DPA that his inspirations were famous Nepali Sherpas Tenzing Norgay - who first reached the top of Mount Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary in 1953 - and Apa Sherpa, who has climbed the mountain the most times.
Mr Sherchan's guide, Shiva Sapkota, told DPA that he had been in good physical health but had not spent time at high altitude since 2015.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39829636
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Well now I am only 60, so I have 20 years to get into shape to break the record! I mean if I started now and really, really worked hard and exercised and pushed myself and ran and jogged and ate right and did strength exercises for the next 20 years, I'll bet I could climb Mt Everest!!!
Then again right now I have trouble climbing into bed....soooooo......
You know the not so funny truth is that if I really set myself to it, I really could do it, if I had the will power. Probably in 10 years. Why not?
What do you think Buzz? A few years training and then a last shot of our lives for the top of the world? Hell even if we die trying it's worth it!
Come on Buzz! Let's get into shape and climb Everest say 10 years from now! I'm game if you are! What's the worst that could happen? We leave our bodies in unrecoverable spots on the side of the tallest mountain in the world! That is GLORY in itself! Or we die trying and that is GLORY too! Or...and this is possible...we make it to the top and come back alive!!!! Holy Crap!!! I could die happy right then and you know you could too!!
I'll be cheering you on from the confines of a sandy white beach with an umbrella drink in one hand a sexy young thing in the other...
Go blue, go Randy....Pass the Tequila sweet thing, I'm working hard cheering on my fellow old farts...
I poured out my scotch when I got up and went for a walk (I am about 30lbs overweight and out of shape) only about a mile or so, but you have to start somewhere, right. Baby steps.