Tamae Watanabe, 73, will attempt to shatter her own decade-old record as the oldest woman to summit Mount Everest, her organizers announced Monday.

Watanabe left Kathmandu, Nepal for the expedition’s base camp last week to begin preparations for her ascent from the Tibetan side of Everest. She is accompanied by Japanese mountaineer and photographer Noriyuki Muraguchi. They hope to summit Everest, which stands 8,848 meters (29,029 feet) between May 10 and 12, according to Ang Tshering Sherpa of the Asian Trekking mountaineering agency.

“She is an active mountaineer who is physically and mentally fit enough to climb Everest,” said Sherpa.

On May 16, 2002 Watanabe had broken the record set by Poland’s Anna Czerwinska to claim the title of world’s oldest female to summit Everest. Czerwinska had been 50 when she summited Everest from the Nepal side on May 20, 2000.

The record for the oldest human to summit Everest is held by Min Bahadur Sherchan of Nepal who accomplished the feat at the age of 76 years and 340 days in 2008.

Everest, which straddles Nepal and China’s Tibet region, has been summited by about 3,000 people since it was first climbed by Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay in 1953. May is considered the only viable month in which to attempt the climb due to swiftly changing weather and snow conditions.