Kathmandu, May 15 -- May 12, 2026. Phur Diki Sherpa returned to the Everest Base Camp after a three-day acclimatisation rotation to Camp III. This season, however, the 51-year-old's sights are not on Everest but on neighbouring Lhotse, the world's fourth-highest mountain.

Phur Diki has an ambitious plan: to reach Lhotse's summit from Base Camp within roughly 24 hours, and return-a record-setting climb.

Yet when she speaks of her overall climbing career, she starts not with her own aspirations, but the dreams her husband never fulfilled.

"My husband was an icefall doctor," she recalls. Icefall doctors are the experienced Sherpas who fix and maintain climbing routes for other climbers. It was in the pursuit of this work that Phur Diki's ...