Japanese barely sets age record in Everest conquest

YOKOHAMA (Kyodo) Takao Arayama, at 70 years, 7 months and 13 days, became the oldest person in the world to scale Mount Everest, a feat he accomplished Wednesday.

Takao Arayama

"I couldn't imagine he would manage to climb," his wife, Keiko Arayama, 63, told reporters Thursday at their home in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture.

Arakawa broke professional skier Yuichiro Miura's record, said the Tokyo-based Adventure Guides Co., which organized his climb.

Miura is in the Guinness Book of Records for reaching the 8,850-meter mountain's summit in May 2003, also at age 70. But he was three days younger than Arakawa when he scaled the mountain.

Miura plans to make another attempt in 2008 at age 75.

Arayama, a corporate management consultant, started climbing mountains in his 40s. He has scaled the 6,194-meter Mount McKinley, and his goal was to summit Mount Everest, according to the organizer.

Arayama was part of a five-member climbing team that left Japan on April 15. They reached the summit at 10:45 a.m. Wednesday local time, according to word reaching his company via satellite phone.

Miura is now on an expedition to Mount Xixabangma, an 8,000-meter peak in the Himalayas, with his son, Gota, 36, who was an Olympic skier, his office said.