She Absolutely Smashed a Record Set on Everest

Two days after a man set a record on Everest, a woman claimed one, too. Nepali climber Phunjo Lama on Thursday broke the record for the fastest ascent of the mountain by a woman, in the process reclaiming a record she had lost in 2021. Lama went from base camp to the summit in just 14 hours and 31 minutes; most climbers acclimatize at the various camps along the way, making it a days-long process, reports CBS News. Specifically, she departed base camp at 3:52pm Wednesday and reached the top at 6:23am Thursday, reports the Himalayan Times.

It was a drastic shortening of the current record, set in 2021 by Ada Tsang Yin-hung of Hong Kong, who covered the same distance in 25 hours and 50 minutes. And it's less than half of the time it took Lama to scale the mountain in her record-setting summit in 2018, when she did it in 39 hours and 6 minutes. The fastest-ever summit of Everest was accomplished in 2003 by Lhakpa Gelu Sherpa of Nepal; he made it to the top in 10 hours and 56 minutes. (More Mount Everest stories.)