Pumori is a mountain on the Nepal-Tibet border in the Mahalangur section of the Himalayas. Pumori lies just eight kilometres west of Mount Everest. Pumori, meaning "the Mountain Daughter" in Sherpa language, was named by George Mallory. "Pumo" means young girl or daughter and "Ri" means mountain in Sherpa language. Climbers sometimes refer to Pumori as "Everest's Daughter". Mallory also called it Clare Peak, after his daughter. Pumori is a popular climbing peak. The easiest route is graded class 3, although with significant avalanche danger. Pumori was first climbed on May 17, 1962 by Gerhard Lenser on a German-Swiss expedition. Two Czechs climbed a new route on the south face in the spring of 1996. An outlier of Pumori is Kala Patthar, which appears as a brown bump below the south face of Pumori. Many trekkers going to see Mount Everest up close will attempt to climb to the top of Kala Patthar.
Trekking and mountaineering
Nearly 500 people had summitted Pumori by 2005, at a cost of 42 lives. It was noted for its increasing popularity by 2008, with such features as being able to use the Everest base camp for Nepal when trekking or climbing Pumori and offering views of Tibet, Nepal and Everest. However, there have been some dangers from avalanches including some Spanish climbing teams that took heavy losses, and the 2015 avalanche, which was triggered by the 2015 earthquake, originated from the Pumori-Lingtren ridge. In 1982 a group climbing to Pumori also did a ski-hike around Everest. Jim Bridwell led the climbing expedition to Pumori.
Ascents
1962 first ascent by Gerhard Lenser of a German-Swiss expedition.
1974 West Face new route by Alpine Club Unpo, Japan, summit reached by Minoru Takagi and Nobuyaki Kaneko on Oct 13.
1986 1985 Catalan Route on East Face, solo by Todd Bibler, summit reached December 5.
2002 Three women from an Iranian expedition reached the summit on October 20 via the southeast face to the east ridge. The Sherpas twice stopped opening the route to the team as they did not expect the women to manage the difficulties.
Ski attempts
2013 Seb de Sainte Marie and Paul Holding unsuccessfully attempted to climb and ski the West Face.
Accidents
In late October 1988 two Icelandic climbers died on the mountain. They were found 30 years later, in November 2018 by an American mountaineer.
In 1989 a team of four Spanish climbers were killed in an avalanche on Pumori, and again in September 2001 another Spanish team was killed in an avalanche.
On 19 October 2002, five Basque mountaineers were swept 600–800 metres down the southeast face by an avalanche caused by seracs falling above them.
