Another Sherpa dies guiding climbers. Is it too dangerous?
In July 2023, mountaineer Tenjen Lama Sherpa guided a Norwegian climber to summit the world’s 14 highest peaks in record time. In a sport that demands an alchemy of sinewy resolve and highaltitude faith, Lama did everything his client did and more. But his client received most of the money, fame and attention.
Lucrative endorsements are not usually given to Nepal’s ethnic Sherpas. For them, the profession of Himalayan guide offers a path out of deep poverty, but also a possible route to a premature death.
Lama could not afford to rest after guiding the Norwegian, Kristin Harila, he told The New York Times. Life in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, was expensive. He could not read or write, but he wanted his sons to get the best education, a costly endeavor.
So only three months after climbing the 14 peaks, Lama was back working as a Sherpa. Another foreigner chasing another record had hired him as a guide. This time, it was Gina Marie Rzucidlo, who was trying to become the first American woman to climb the world’s tallest mountains. Another American woman, also guided by a Sherpa, was climbing separately in pursuit of the same record. But on Oct. 7, avalanches broke loose on Mount Shishapangma in Tibet. Both pairs of climbers were killed.
Lama’s death was the latest in a series of tragedies to shear his family tree of siblings. In 2021, Norbu Sherpa, the oldest of the four mountainclimbing brothers, ended his life after a love affair went wrong. And last May, Phurba Sherpa, the second oldest, died during a rescue mission on Mount Everest.
The last remaining brother, Pasdawa Sherpa, learned about Lama’s death after returning from an expedition to the world’s seventh- and eighth-highest mountains.
For three days, Pasdawa traveled by foot, bus and plane to Lama’s apartment in Kathmandu. He knelt before his brother’s Buddhist altar, eight candles flickering above. Marigolds and a ceremonial cloth surrounded a portrait of Lama, grinning in an orange snowsuit.
Pasdawa closed his eyes and prayed for his dead brothers. He said he prayed for himself, too. He would have to persevere in the only life he knew.
“I will keep climbing mountains,” Pasdawa said. “I have no other options.”
This is what a Sherpa does: He lugs heavy packs and oxygen cylinders for foreign clients. He cooks and sets up camp. He navigates through snowstorms and clears piles of trash. He wakes before dawn and spends hours driving metal pickets into the ice so a rope line can protect foreign climbers. He trudges past icefalls where bus-size slabs have buried other Sherpas in frozen graveyards.
Compared with the client, a Sherpa spends far more time in the so-called death zone: elevations above 26,000 feet, or 8,000 meters, where human cognition slows without supplemental oxygen and altitude sickness can quickly turn fatal.
Walung, the village in northeastern Nepal where Lama and his brothers grew up, has produced about 100 expedition guides over the past couple of decades. Of those 100, 15 have died on the job, locals said.
The high mortality rate highlights the inequity of a life-or-death sport. Roughly one-third of the more than 335 people who have died on Everest are Sherpas. Yet their expertise earns them wages that, while high by local standards, are only a fraction of what most of their clients shell out for their expeditions.
Nepal’s mountaineering industry, a crucial money earner for an impoverished country, caters to those willing to spend upward of $100,000 to summit a single Himalayan peak in luxurious style.
Almost all are foreigners. In recent years, their numbers have surged. Icefalls and bottlenecks at
high-altitude choke points also have surged, increasing the chance of accidents.
During last year’s spring climbing season at Mount Everest, the Nepalese government issued permits to 478 foreigners, the most ever. Eighteen people, including six Sherpas, died on the mountain, another record.
So far this spring, six people have been confirmed
dead in their quests to summit Mount Everest, and three are missing.
In 2019, Lama and his three brothers entered the Guinness World Records when they climbed Kangchenjunga, the world’s third-highest mountain. In a photo taken at the summit, the siblings smiled, each in a bright suit, the air light with their exhilaration.
Shishapangma, in Tibet, is considered the easiest of the 14 peaks. Still, nearly 1 in 10 climbers dies attempting its ascent. On Oct. 7, Lama was guiding Rzucidlo, one of two American climbers making the attempt. Ahead of them were Anna Gutu and her guide, Mingmar Sherpa. With uncertain weather ahead, other climbers retreated. The two Americans and two Sherpas persevered.
The women had just this mountain left before a chance at the American 14-peak record.
A separate avalanche claimed each pair.
In Tibetan Buddhist tradition, to which the Sherpas adhere, the dead should be cremated at home. Only then, after the purification of flames, can their souls reincarnate.
But as May drew to a close, Pasdawa was still waiting for his visa to Tibet. The spring climbing season will soon end. Along with Rzucidlo, his brother is still out there somewhere on the mountain, frozen in his orange snowsuit.