Man Reaches Everest Summit, Finds Out It's Been Done Before

Elderly Man's Dream Preceded By Fifty Years and Hundreds of Others

Min Bahadur Sherchan, a 76-year-old Nepalese man, reached the 8,848 foot high summit of Mt. Everest today only to find out that he's 55 years too late.

A life-long dream of Sherchan, he became interested in climbing the mountain when he was in his early twenties. A wager was placed between Sherchan and Nepalese sherpa Tenzing Norgay on who could reach the top first. Unknown to Sherchan until now, Sherpa Tenzing enlisted the aid of famed New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary.

After bidding his family and friends good-bye almost 60 years ago, he began his long trek towards the "top of the world". His trip was halted several times, however, by the various wise-men sitting cross-legged in thought, whistling out of tune to themselves in their own quest for enlightenment. Sherchan recounts, "They would often ask me questions. Most of them made no sense, but I just couldn't leave without knowing the answers".

He later found out that these questions were not meant to be answered, but to be contemplated seemingly forever in the search for true enlightenment, or "Nirvana".

"I really have no clue what a
defunct 90's grunge band has to do with enlightement," said Sherchan. "I left
them without ever finding the answer to that."

Continuing his quest for the top, Sherchan finally reached his goal only to realise that he'd been beaten by Sherpa Tenzing and Sir Edmund Hillary who had finished the climb in May of 1953. In fact another sherpa guide had completed his eighteenth climb of the mountain just last Thursday.

Although distraught, Sherchan did not let this get in the way of his life's goal. As the oldest man to climb Everest he had beaten Katsusuke Yanagisawa, who had climbed her at the age of 71.

Sherchan reported, "Now I can die happy knowing that bastard Tenzing is already dead"

[That is all]