If Thursday was anything to go by, this will be a wild week on Sagarmatha in the run-up to 29 May, the 50th anniversary of the first ascent of the world's highest mountain.

One after another, the records are falling. For the past four days, 70-year-old Yuichiro Miura and his 33-year-old son, Gota, have been waiting out high winds at 8,200m to make their summit bid. On Thursday morning, Miura Sr became the oldest man ever to climb Mt Everest, and this is the longest anyone has spent above 8,000m. Thirty-three years ago, he had skied down Everest, braking by deploying a parachute.

After days of fierce winds, nearly 150 climbers from 25 expeditions have been moving up the mountain from the Nepali side, and 30 expeditions from the north. Till presstime Thursday, some 26 Nepalis and 11 international climbers got to the top from the south.

Eleven Nepalis were from an Indo-Nepali army expedition in which three Indians also reached the summit. Then there was the famous South Korean, Um Hong-Gil who has climbed all 14 peaks in the world higher than 8,000m, and has done Everest three times now from different directions.

Others to get on top Thursday were the Irish, Belgians, Chinese and a Russian who climbed from the north without bottled oxygen. But by mid-afternoon it was getting crowded on the summit ridge, and at least one expedition turned back from the South Col because of overcrowding. The wind was gusting up to 60 knots and clouds had moved in. A Chinese expedition from the north was forced to return from near the summit.

In the coming days, more expeditions will be making summit bids-traffic and weather permitting. There are the South Africans, trying to put the first black woman on the summit, the Italian speed expedition is acclimatising and moving up to the South Col and the 50-strong French expedition is planning to go for the top in two groups this week. Most expeditions have been sharing Sherpas to fix ropes while they wait for the weather window to make the dash to the summit.

Meanwhile, here in Namche the celebrations for the 50th anniversary seem to be disorganised. There is a Hillary statue being unveiled, but not even his sister knows where and when. There is supposed to be a party in Tengboche for Reinhold Messner, but the locals have no idea. Namche's ex-headman Sonam Gyalgin Sherpa admits there is no one in charge. "Everyone is doing their own thing, no one is coordinating."

Even so, Namche wears a festive look because the jubilee has brought increased trekking traffic after three consecutive years of decline. April alone saw 3,000 trekkers and climbers passing through, compared to only 1,700 last year. Hotel-owners here hope this year trekking numbers will reach the 25,000 that Namche gets on normal years.