A US-based dishwasher is determined to live up to her reputation as the "Queen of Everest" by scaling the world's highest mountain for the ninth time.
Lhakpa Sherpa, who was born in Nepal, already holds the record for a woman of eight ascents and is determined to be on cloud nine when she tackles the Himalayan giant again.
Between raising her children and working as a dishwasher at Whole Foods in the US state of Connecticut, the 44-year-old does not have much time to train for her annual trip to the top of the world.
She returns to Nepal this month for what has become an annual expedition to Everest.
"My body knows that I have already been this high. It's like a computer," she said.
"It figures it out very quickly. My body knows the high altitude. It remembers."
Lhakpa Sherpa is recognised by Guinness World Records and is well known in mountaineering circles, but she spends most of the year living a modest life in obscurity in Connecticut, where she moved with her now ex-husband, another well-known climber, in 2002.
She gets up most days at 6am to walk her two daughters, 16-year-old Sunny and 11-year-old Shiny, to school.
Then, because she does not know how to drive, she often...