An 85-year-old former Gurkha is making a bid to reclaim his title as the world's oldest person to summit Qomolangma, known in the West as Mount Everest.

A Guinness World Record certificate hangs proudly in Min Bahadur Sherchan's Kathmandu home and by the end of this year's spring climbing season he hopes to have a second one hanging next to it.

Sherchan made his historic climb in 2008 when he was 76, but he lost the record five years later when Japanese mountaineer Yuichiro Miura summited the 8,848-meter peak at the age of 80.