254 climbers scale Mount Everest from Nepalese side during spring season

KATMANDU (AP) - A total of 254 climbers from 23 nations have scaled Mount Everest from the Nepalese side during the popular spring climbing season, mountaineering officials said Monday.

Among the climbers tackling the world's tallest mountain were 140 from Nepal, 39 from Britain and 31 from the United States, said Khadananda Dhakal, chief of Nepal's Mountaineering Department.

Dhakal said Nepal's government issued permits to 23 different teams attempting to scale the 8,850-meter (29,035-foot) mountain.

The spring season starts in March and ends in May, when climbing becomes impossible as the weather deteriorates because of the monsoon season.

Eight female climbers scaled Everest this spring, including 18-year-old American Samantha Larson of Long Beach, California.

Larson became the youngest climber to reach the peaks of the highest mountains on all seven continents.

She also became the youngest foreign woman to scale Everest. A 15-year-old Sherpa girl from Nepal was the youngest female to ever climb the mountain.

During the spring season, veteran Nepalese Sherpa guide Apa, who goes by one name, climbed Everest a record 17th time, breaking his own previous record. His closest competitor has climbed it 14 times.

Since New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay first conquered Everest on May 29, 1953, more than 2,000 climbers have scaled the mountain. Some 205 people have died on its unpredictable slopes.