Record holding climber says Mount Everest is 'dry, more rocky'

By Gopal Sharma KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Mount Everest is losing snow and turning "dry and rocky", British climber Kenton Cool, who made his 17th ascent of the world’s highest peak this week, the most by a foreigner, said on Saturday. The 49-year-old Cool, who climbed the 8,849-metre (29,032 foot) peak for the first time in 2004, said the giant mountain appears to be drying now. "If you go back to early mid-2000s there used to be a lot of snow," he told Reuters in an interview in Kathmandu after returning from his record-setting expedition which was confirmed by Nepali and hiking officials this w...