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A teacher from Hong Kong has become the fastest woman to climb Mount Everest.
Tsang Yin-hung, 45, climbed from the base camp – at 17,390 feet – to the summit – at 29,032 feet – in 25 hours and 50 minutes.
The previous record for fastest female climber was held by Phunjo Jhangmu Lama, from Nepal, who scaled the mountain in 39 hours and 6 minutes, the New York Post reported.
"I just feel kind of relief and happy because I am not looking for breaking a record," Tsang said after her climb. "I feel relieved because I can prove my work to my friends, to my students."
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Tsang stopped only twice along the way so she could change clothes. Her climb was also not hindered by other climbers on some of the highest trails.
Tsang Yin-hung, 45, from Hong Kong, scaled Mount Everest from the base camp in 25 hours and 50 minutes and became the fastest female climber. (AP Photo/Bikram Rai)
Though Tsang saw some climbers after she passed the highest camp on her way to the summit, they were all descending and didn’t slow her down.
Typically, with so few days of good weather left on Mount Everest, hundreds of climbers try to reach the summit, which causes traffic jams and long wait times on the highest trail.
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"For the summit, it is not just not your ability, teamwork, I think luck is very important," she said.
This was Tsang’s second attempt to climb Mount Everest. On May 11, she reached very close to the summit, but was forced to turn back because of bad weather.
The fastest man to climb Mount Everest is Sherpa guide Lakpa Gelu, who reached the summit after only 10 hours and 56 minutes in 2003.
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Tsang wasn’t the only person to break a world record for Mount Everest recently.
Arthur Muir, 75, from Chicago, became the oldest American to climb the world’s tallest peak, beating the previous record set by Bill Burke, who was 67 when he reached the summit.
American climber Arthur Muir, 75, became the oldest American to scale Mount Everest earlier this month, beating the record by another American, Bill Burke, at age 67. (AP Photo/Bikram Rai)
Muir, a retired attorney, started mountaineering when he was 68 and first took trips to South America and Alaska before attempting to climb Everest for the first time in 2019.
On that trip, he hurt his ankle falling off a ladder and was unable to finish the climb. He tried again this year and made it safely to the summit and back.
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"You realize how big a mountain it is, how dangerous it is, how many things that could go wrong," Muir said after his climb. "Yeah, it makes you nervous, it makes, you know, some anxiety there and maybe little bit of scared."
He added: "I was just surprised when I actually got to there [the summit] but I was too tired to stand up, and in my summit pictures I am sitting down."
An outbreak of the coronavirus among climbers and their guides at the Everest base camp has forced at least three teams to cancel their expeditions. But hundreds of others have pushed through attempting to scale the summit, at a time when Nepal is in lockdown battling its worst surge in COVID-19.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.