IMAGE: GETTY
HOT TOPIC
Sherpas en route to Everest Base Camp, crossing Cho La Pass, in Solukhumbu District, northeastern Nepal
SHERPAS: THE INVISIBLE MEN OF EVEREST
Of ten overlooked and rarely adequately rewarded, Nepal ’s ‘people of the east’ have been helping adventurers up Mount Everest for a century, but at what cost? Words: James Draven
“I remember looking up at the mountain and seeing a landslide heading towards me. Without being dramatic, I accepted that I was going to die.” Ryan Colligan, a 31-year-old film
editor from Kent, is telling me about his experience at Tengboche, Nepal, as he returned from Everest Base Camp in April 2015, when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake triggered an avalanche that killed 22 people, the biggest tragedy in Mount Everest’s history. “Ten minutes earlier I’d been taking a
photograph of my partner, Evie, in front of a painted rock face, before meeting my friends in a teahouse on stilts. Now the teahouse walls had crumbled and everybody was fleeing in terror, and the rock mural where we’d been standing was buried under a landslide. The
ground shook like a cornering Tube train as we ran towards our Sherpa guide, Pemba, who assembled our group amid the chaos, and led us back down the trail, which was in places no more than mud and debris, bounded by sheer drops. The air smelled of upturned soil. “Pemba lived in Lukla and I knew he
was anxious to get back to his family, but he stayed with us in Namche Bazaar for four nights, waiting for the aſtershocks to die down before guiding us back past collapsed villages. Throughout, Pemba had our best interests at heart and ensured we were safe.” There are many such stories of high-
altitude heroism associated with the Sherpa, an ethnic group native to Nepal. These tales stretch back to Western adventurers’ first Everest expeditions
in the 1920s; but it was Tenzing Norgay who brought the Sherpa people to the attention of the world, as part of New Zealander Edmund Hillary’s successful 1953 expedition team. Hillary was knighted for being the
first known person to climb to the top of Mount Everest. But Tenzing, who simultaneously reached its summit, only received an honorary medal. In the years since, there’s been growing disquiet at the lack of official recognition. Since the pair’s achievement,
summiting Mount Everest, the highest spot on the planet, has been regarded as the pinnacle of adventure travel. Thousands of people have attempted it since 1953, with up to 800 people reaching the summit each year and many more making the trip to Base Camp.
Adventure September 2018 19
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84
