A South Korean climber was heading towards the final summit in her quest to become the first woman to scale the world's 14 highest peaks, though a dispute about her honesty awaits her return.
Oh Eun-Sun set off from her last camp before dawn and hoped to conquer Annapurna, a 8,091-metre (26,545 foot) mountain in Nepal, after about 13 hours, her expedition coordinator Song Heak Kwoung said.
"She started at 3:00 am (2115 GMT)," Song told news agency AFP in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu. "If all goes well, we expect that she will summit at about 4:00 pm (1015 GMT)."
Television footage broadcast in South Korea showed her at around 7,700 metres just after 0430 GMT.
One more peak to go
Oh, 44, is one of just two female climbers claiming to have stood on the top of 13 of the world's 14 mountains over 8,000 metres (26,000 feet), and success on Annapurna should earn her the coveted record.
But her place in climbing history is still far from certain.
Last week, her 2009 ascent of Mount Kanchenjunga on the Nepal-Tibet border, was thrown into doubt when a leading authority on Himalayan mountaineering said fellow climbers had expressed scepticism.
Elizabeth Hawley said Oh's climb would be considered "disputed" as fellow mountaineers, including her chief rival for the record, Edurne Pasaban, had questioned whether she really made it to the top.
Spanish conquest
Pasaban, 36, conquered Annapurna earlier this month, becoming the first Spanish woman ever to do so and leaving her with just one more mountain to scale.
The race is now on for Pasaban to reach Tibet, where she will attempt to climb her last "eight-thousander", Shisha Pangma, the smallest of the 14 peaks at 8,027 metres.
Just 18 people have made it to the top of the 14 eight-thousanders, all of which are in Asia's Himalaya and Karakoram ranges, since Italian climber Reinhold Messner became the first person to do so in 1986.
"I feel good, but I will leave everything to the god of Annapurna," Oh told the Korean Broadcasting Service (KBS) last week as she prepared for her push to the summit.
Her climb has sparked a media frenzy in her home country.
South Korea's KBS television broadcast live footage of Oh's team moving on a snow-covered slope on the way to the summit.
Oh's team left camp and began making a push towards the summit at 1:45 am local time in Nepal, KBS said.
Oh, wearing a pink climbing outfit, raised her arm in response to well-wishers shouting "Good luck" when she began her final push.
Pasaban ticks Annapurna
Meanwhile Oh's chief rival, Pasaban, is hot on her heels and already en route to the Shisha Pangma base camp in Tibet after her successful Annapurna ascent.
Expedition organiser Anjan Rai of Thamserku Trekking told AFP that Pasaban was still in the running. "She is already well acclimatised from Annapurna, so she might be able to do (Shisha Pangma) in three weeks," he told AFP.
Next in line is Austria's Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, who has climbed all but the world's two highest peaks, Everest and K2.
The 39-year-old, who climbs without oxygen, is currently acclimatizing on Everest, preparing for her ascent of a little-used route up the north face.
Oh appears to have the lead over her two European rivals, but mountaineering experts say Annapurna is the most difficult and dangerous of the 14 peaks.
"If I manage to do this I will be incredibly proud, not just for myself but for my country and for Asia," Oh told AFP after arriving in Kathmandu for the expedition.
"I don't know why no female climber has managed it. I suppose it is down to women's position in the world, which is still not the same as men's."
