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Lhakpa Sherpa climbs Mount Everest for 10th time, breaking her own record

Lhakpa Sherpa, pictured in 2016, worked as a porter and kitchen hand on trekking and mountaineering expeditions when she was young. (AFP: Prakash Mathema)

A Nepalese Sherpa has broken her own record as the most successful female climber of Mount Everest by reaching the summit of the world's highest peak for the 10th time.

Lhakpa Sherpa and several other climbers took advantage of favourable weather to reach the nearly 9,000-metre summit early on Thursday morning.

The 48-year-old's brother described her as being in good health and said she was safely descending from the summit.

Ms Sherpa, who runs a mountaineering guiding business, raised money for the expedition via crowdfunding.

In a Facebook post late last month she said she was at Everest Base Camp with her 15-year-old daughter Shiny.

The 8,848-metre Mount Everest reopened to climbers last year after being closed for the better part of a year because of COVID-19.

The male record holder, a fellow Nepalese climber named Kami Rita Sherpa, has scaled Everest 26 times, breaking his own record just last week.

The world's tallest mountain has been scaled more than 10,000 times since 1953, with 311 climbers dying in the attempt.

Ms Sherpa, who has said she was born in a cave, first climbed Everest in 2000, according to Outside magazine, becoming the first Nepalese woman to summit the mountain and make it down alive.

The first woman to climb Mt Everest was Japanese mountaineer Junko Tabei, in 1975. She died in 2016.

Ms Sherpa has said she plans to make mountaineering history later this year by adding a summer ascent of the world's second-highest mountain, K2.

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