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    The Sherpas of Mount Everest

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    Chandresh Jain
    The Sherpas have played an integral role in Everest climbing expeditions since the 1920s. They were first employed as porters to carry heavy loads for Western mountaineers but proved remarkably strong and resilient at high altitudes. Sherpas soon took on critical climbing roles and established themselves as highly skilled mountaineers, with Tenzing Norgay becoming the first to reach the summit in 1953. In modern times, Sherpas continue to serve vital functions as guides and support for expeditions while also pursuing their own mountaineering achievements. However, their close association with Everest has come at a high cost, with Sherpas representing a large portion of the mountain's fatalities over the years.

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    The Sherpas of Mount Everest

    Uploaded by

    Chandresh Jain
    137 views4 pages
    The Sherpas have played an integral role in Everest climbing expeditions since the 1920s. They were first employed as porters to carry heavy loads for Western mountaineers but proved remarkably strong and resilient at high altitudes. Sherpas soon took on critical climbing roles and established themselves as highly skilled mountaineers, with Tenzing Norgay becoming the first to reach the summit in 1953. In modern times, Sherpas continue to serve vital functions as guides and support for expeditions while also pursuing their own mountaineering achievements. However, their close association with Everest has come at a high cost, with Sherpas representing a large portion of the mountain's fatalities over the years.

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    The Sherpas have played an integral role in Everest climbing expeditions since the 1920s. They were first employed as porters to carry heavy loads for Western mountaineers but proved remarkably strong and resilient at high altitudes. Sherpas soon took on critical climbing roles and established themselves as highly skilled mountaineers, with Tenzing Norgay becoming the first to reach the summit in 1953. In modern times, Sherpas continue to serve vital functions as guides and support for expeditions while also pursuing their own mountaineering achievements. However, their close association with Everest has come at a high cost, with Sherpas representing a large portion of the mountain's fatalities over the years.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    137 views4 pages

    The Sherpas of Mount Everest

    Uploaded by

    Chandresh Jain
    The Sherpas have played an integral role in Everest climbing expeditions since the 1920s. They were first employed as porters to carry heavy loads for Western mountaineers but proved remarkably strong and resilient at high altitudes. Sherpas soon took on critical climbing roles and established themselves as highly skilled mountaineers, with Tenzing Norgay becoming the first to reach the summit in 1953. In modern times, Sherpas continue to serve vital functions as guides and support for expeditions while also pursuing their own mountaineering achievements. However, their close association with Everest has come at a high cost, with Sherpas representing a large portion of the mountain's fatalities over the years.

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    The Sherpas of Mount Everest

    View a Photo Gallery of Sherpas: Go >>

    The National Geographic 50th Anniversary Everest Expedition commemorates the first
    ascent of the world's highest mountain, by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in May
    1953. It also honors the first Americans to stand on the top of the world, including Barry
    Bishop, in 1963.

    What's This?
    The sons of Everest pioneers Hillary, Norgay, and Bishop—Peter Hillary, Jamling
    Norgay, and Brent Bishop—are helping make a documentary that will air on the
    National Geographic Channel in the United States and internationally in 2003.

    The National Geographic 50th Anniversary Everest Expedition is made possible in part
    by the generous support of American International Group, Inc.

    The cheerful smiles and legendary strength of the Sherpas have been an integral
    part of Everest climbing expeditions from the very beginning. Indeed, very few
    significant successes have been achieved without them.

    When Western mountaineers first set their sights on the world's highest peak, they
    found in the Sherpas a people ideally suited to the rigors of high-altitude climbing;
    unfailingly positive, stout at altitude, and seemingly resistant to cold.

    Sherpas did not venture into the high peaks until European mountaineers began arriving
    to climb in the world's greatest mountain range. Mount Everest, known as
    Chomolungma or "Goddess Mother of the Land" to Tibetan language speakers like the
    Sherpas, was long revered as an abode of the gods. Its slopes were considered off-
    limits to humans.

    Although Everest now sees many a human footprint, the Sherpas still regard the
    mountain as a holy place. All modern expeditions begin with a Puja ceremony in which
    Sherpas and other team members leave offerings and pay homage to the gods of the
    mountain, hoping to remain in their good graces throughout the climb.

    The Earliest Years

    A Himalayan veteran in the early 1920s, Alexander Kellas is generally regarded as the
    first person to recognize the natural aptitude of the Sherpa people for hard work and
    climbing at high altitude. In his time, Kellas was perhaps the world's leading expert on
    mountain sickness and the effects of high altitude. He recognized that Sherpas did not
    feel these effects in the same way as others, though it remains unclear what
    combination of genetics and an upbringing at high altitude allows the Sherpas to deal
    physiologically with altitude better than others.

    Sherpas were first employed as porters, tasked with carrying large amounts of
    equipment to supply the military-style expeditions of the day. The British climbers were
    amazed at the strength of these people, from the fittest of mature men to the young and
    elderly. Arthur Wakefield described the team of porters on one early expedition as "a
    motley throng of old men, women, boys and girls." Yet their accomplishments
    astonished him. At 18,000 feet, how the Sherpas carried their loads "completely puzzles
    me," he wrote. "Some were 80 pounds!" In addition to their loads, some of the women
    carried along their babies. The whole troop slept outside, using only rocks for shelter, as
    temperatures dropped well below freezing.

    Stronger Sherpas soon graduated from porter status and began to undertake
    challenging climbing and work high on the mountain. Those who distinguished
    themselves high on the mountain were awarded the Tiger Medal, and many aspired to
    this honor and the higher pay rate it afforded.

    Everest legend George Mallory reported to a joint meeting of the Royal Geographical
    Society and the Alpine Club that the greatest lesson learned from the 1922 expedition
    was that the Sherpas' power far exceeded expectations. They carried loads to 25,500
    feet, and some of them could repeat this incredible feat three days in a row and show
    little fatigue. It was only this remarkable ability that made possible the high-camp
    method of climbing Everest that prevails to this day.

    Unfortunately, Sherpas were also the first to suffer the consequences that can come
    from climbing high on Everest. A North Col avalanche killed seven Sherpa porters on
    the 1922 expedition, the first recorded climbing fatalities on the mountain. Even after the
    disaster, however, the Sherpa people remained enthusiastic about taking part in
    Everest expeditions, which even then were becoming an important source of revenue
    for a poor mountain folk.

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    The Era of Everest Successes

    Successive seasons have seen Everest activity grow by leaps and bounds, and seen
    the Sherpas achieve some of the mountain's greatest achievements.

    It was Sherpa Tenzing Norgay who first reached the summit with Sir Edmund Hillary 1n
    1953, and Tenzing who plants the flag in the famous photo of triumph. It was only fitting
    that a Sherpa be part of the first pair to finally reach a summit that had long seemed
    unattainable.

    On the 1963 expedition that put the first American climbers on the summit of Everest,
    Sherpas played a heroic role.

    After a successful summit, climbers Willi Unsoeld, Lute Jerstad, and Barry C. Bishop
    were debilitated by frostbite and unable to descend from Base Camp. Sherpas came to
    the rescue, with a team of four carrying each climber on a two-day journey to Namche
    Bazaar where they could be evacuated by helicopter.

    Bishop described in National Geographic magazine the typical good humor with which
    they set to even this grueling task: "By the end of the first day, a fierce rivalry springs up
    between the four carrying me and the four carrying Willi. Every suitable stretch of trail
    inspires a foot race."

    At expedition's end, President John F. Kennedy presented each member of the


    expedition, including the Sherpa team, with the National Geographic Society's Hubbard
    Medal.

    In the modern age of Everest climbing, Sherpas are among the most accomplished
    mountaineers. They often serve as guides to foreign climbers, and the names of their
    own great mountaineers hold a high place in Everest lore.

    Ang Rita Sherpa, the well-known climbing Sherpa, amassed an amazing ten Everest
    summits—all without oxygen. In 1999 Babu Chiri Sherpa spent 20 hours on the summit
    of Everest, an unheard-of feat. Babu Chiri also raced up the mountain in a record
    ascent of 16 hours and 56 minutes. In 1995 he ascended Everest twice within two
    weeks. He dedicated his Everest achievements to raising international awareness and
    funds for the education of Sherpa children.
    Such feats, along with their continued roles in carrying loads, fixing ropes, setting
    camps, and generally tending to climbing teams have earned the Sherpa people a place
    of unequalled respect. They've also helped to create a climbing and trekking industry
    that has brought the world to Nepal's once-isolated Solo Khumbu region. In the
    Sherpas' home, Everest has become not only a spiritual center but a financial one as
    well.

    Of course, success or failure on Everest comes with a price, and the Sherpas have
    always paid dearly for their association with the mountain. Since the first seven Sherpa
    fatalities in 1922, many others have lost their lives on Everest. Of the first 100 recorded
    Everest fatalities, for example, 41 were Sherpas. In April 2001 Babu Chiri Sherpa fell to
    his death into a crevasse near Camp Two, a tragic end to an Everest legend.

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