73-year-old Japanese woman scales Mount Everest
ASSOCIATED PRESS May 19, 2012 1:02AM
FILE - In this Thursday, May 9, 2002 file photo, Tamae Watanabe, right, of Japan poses with a photograher Noriyuki Muraguchi at a base camp on the foot of Mt. Everest in Nepal. A 73-year-old Watanabe has climbed Mount Everest, smashing her own record to again become the oldest woman to scale the world's highest mountain. (AP Photo/Office Seven Summits, File)
KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) — A 73-year-old Japanese woman has climbed Mount Everest, smashing her own record to again become the oldest woman to scale the world’s highest mountain.
Ang Tshering of the China Tibet Mountaineering Association says Tamae Watanabe reached Everest’s 29,035-foot-high summit from the northern side of the mountain in Tibet on Saturday morning with four other team members.
Tshering says Watanabe and the other team members are in good condition and are on their way back to the base of the mountain.
Watanabe had climbed Everest in 2002 at the age of 63 to become the oldest woman to scale the mountain.
