Christopher John Kulish, 62, died on Monday right after reaching the top of Mount Everest on the Nepal side of the mountain.
His brother said Christopher had just reached the top of Everest with a small group after hundreds of climbers congested the 29,035-foot (8,850-meter) peak last week.
“He saw his last sunrise from the highest peak on Earth. At that instant, he became a member of the ‘7 Summit Club,’ having scaled the highest peak on each continent,” Mark Kulish said in a statement.
Christopher is survived by his mother and younger siblings.
At least half a dozen climbers died on Everest last week, including Don Cash of Utah, who also had achieved his dream of climbing all the highest mountains on each continent. Most of them died while descending from the summit during few short windows of good weather.
There are 41 teams with a total of 378 climbers permitted to climb Mount Everest during the spring climbing season. An equal number of Nepal certified guides are helping them get to the top.
Most people can only spend just a few minutes at the summit without extra oxygen supply, and the area where hikers have been delayed is notoriously known as the “death zone.”
Nepali climbing guide Dhruba Bista got sick on the mountain and was immediately transported by helicopter to the base camp, where he unfortunately died on Friday. Irish climber Kevin Hynes, 56, died Friday morning on the Tibetan side of Everest in his tent at 7,000 meters (22,966 feet).
Nihal Bagwan, 27, and Kalpana Das, 49, both from India, also died on Everest this week. Both died Thursday during their descent from the summit.
Last week, a search for Irish climber Seamus Lawless, 39, was called off, after the Trinity College Dublin professor fell while descending from the peak, according to the Press Assocation. Lawless is missing, presumed dead.
More than 200 mountaineers have died on the peak since 1922, when the first climbers’ deaths on Everest were recorded.
The majority of bodies are believed to have remained buried deep under glaciers or thick layers of snow.
