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China dashes Everest hero's dream Publish Date : 5/31/2005 4:13:00 PM Source : Sports News A mountaineering hero, who holds a record among Westerners for summiting Mt Everest, had his dream to improve his own record and re-enact a feat performed nearly 20 years ago dashed by the Chinese authorities. Luis Benitez, a 32-year-old climber and mountaineering guide who last year claimed the non-Sherpa record for the maximum number of consecutive Everest summits with four ascents in as many years, was planning a fifth shot from Nepal this climbing season. Benitez, who was one of the guides of blind climber Erik Weihenmayer when the latter conquered Mt Everest in 2001, had planned the most unusual and risky climb - the Everest Traverse. He had planned to climb the tallest peak in the world from Nepal and come down from Tibet, making it one of the most risky and expensive enterprises. Besides a battery of formalities like double visa and permissions, it would also have meant coming down an unfamiliar route when he was already exhausted by the long climb. The Nepal-Tibet Everest Traverse has been done only once, in 1988, by a China-Japan-Nepal "Asian friendship Expedition" with 254 members. Benitez's more daring plan was to make the attempt with an Australian climber, Piers Buck, and a Sherpa. He was at first thwarted by bad weather on the Nepal side that has prevented any successful summit from the south so far. An impatient Buck decided to reach the top anyway and changed his plan. He flew to the Tibet side to attempt to scale the peak from there. The unscheduled change made the Chinese authorities "jittery". They say the expedition was given a permit to descend from the Tibet side, not go up from there and come down again. Consequently, last week they cancelled Benitez's permit to come down from Tibet, mountaineering website Mounteverest.net reported. A crushed Benitez found he could not even attempt the summit from Nepal let alone the traverse due to continuing bad weather. Instead of putting the team's lives in jeopardy, he has decided to turn around and come back, the website reported. He is not alone. Nearly 40 climbers from the southern side have also decided to throw in their towel and return without attempting the summit. The first ascent by New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa occurred on May 29, 1953. While Nepal celebrated the event Sunday, this year so far no climber has been able to reach the top from the southern side.
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