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FEBRUARY 4, 2002 | NO.4
Men of the Mountain
A new book chronicles the struggles
of the great Sherpa climbers who conquered Everest
By ERIK WEIHENMAYER
In Spring 2001, as I fought my way up the Lhotse Face, traversed
the Geneva Spur, hauled myself up the Hillary Step and finally,
after two-and-a-half months, struggled onto the summit of
Everest, it was impossible to shake the feeling that I was
surrounded by ghosts. The recent fame of modern Sherpa climbers
like Apa Sherpa, who has reached the summit 11 times, and
Babu Chiri Sherpa who, before he was killed in 2001, completed
a speed ascent in less than 17 hours, rests on decades of
accumulated knowledge and sacrifice by the Sherpas who came
before them: men like Tenzing Norgay, who braved the slopes
seven times before becoming, along with Edmund Hillary, the
first to stand on top of the world's highest mountain, in
1953. As the 50th anniversary of the first ascent approaches,
climbing Everest is as much a historic journey as it is a
feat of mountaineering.
Plenty has been written about conquering Everest, most of
it biased toward the exploits of Westerners. Now, Tenzing
Norgay and the Sherpas of Everest by Tashi Tenzing (HarperCollins;
211 pages), grandson of Tenzing Norgay, gives a face to the
Sherpa heroes, representatives of "a people whose loyalty
and personal integrity have earned them a reputation worldwide
to equal that of the great mountain, beneath which they dwell."
Many of these so-called tigers of the snow paid the ultimate
price: by 1990, 43 of Everest's 115 fatalities were Sherpas.
The book is most intriguing when chronicling the struggles
of the early Sherpa climbers, who fought not only their own
physical limitations but also cultural and religious barriers.
From the beginning of
Himalayan expeditions, Westerners viewed Sherpas as strong
and faithful load carriers, the backbone to any climb, but
not as true summit contenders. For their part, says Tenzing,
Sherpas were bewildered by Westerners' "fascination with these
high, cold, dangerous places where the gods lived and men
should not venture." Buddhist lamas, consulted before Englishman
George Mallory's 1924 Everest expedition, told jthe Sherpas
not to set foot on the summit, because calamity would befall
their communities. The Sherpas obeyed; Mallory and Sandy Irvine
fatefully disappeared during their climb.
One Sherpa, more than any other, changed this attitude. "In
Tenzing Norgay," writes his grandson, "there developed something
more, something almost alien to his race, this was a passion
for and an ambition to climb mountains, specifically Everest."
As a boy, while he herded yaks on the high mountain pastures
with Chomolungma-as Everest is known by the Sherpas-looming
above, he had grown to consider it his mountain.
In the spring of 1952, Tenzing Norgay joined a Swiss climbing
team. From the start he demonstrated extraordinary leadership.
As he led the three Sherpas and seven Swiss climbers toward
the South Col at 7,925 m, they were stopped by savage winds
and forced to bivouac 153 m below the day's goal. Tashi Tenzing
writes, "My grandfather stayed in the Sherpa tent to keep
them company. He managed to cook some soup and the Swiss were
incredulous when, roped to keep himself from being blown off
the face, he appeared at their tent with hot food and drink."
The next morning, Tenzing Norgay's three exhausted and frightened
Sherpa companions refused to go on, so he shouldered a double
load, climbed to the South Col, descended to the previous
night's camp, shouldered another double load and only then
was he able to induce the Sherpas to carry on. On that trip,
he came close to reaching Everest's summit, but terrible weather
and primitive oxygen equipment thwarted the group's ascent
at 8,610 m, giving Hillary's team its shot the next year.
Tenzing Norgay and his generation of climbers forged a path
that the Sherpa people now navigate daily. Their pioneering
accomplishments served as a bridge from the communities' isolated,
subsistence past to the "relative affluence and sophistication
that they enjoy today," writes Tenzing. A Sherpa, working
as a high-altitude climber, can make four times the average
annual wage of a Nepali. Namche Bazaar, the trading capital
of the Khumbu Valley, once comprising a few dozen mud houses,
now features neon lights, sophisticated communications systems
and blaring rock music. The Khumbu is dotted with medical
clinics and schools. But the climbing and trekking industry
has brought with it the erosion of the traditional trading
and farming life and the ills of rapid growth: drugs, inflation,
deforestation.
In this testament to Sherpas past and present, Tashi Tenzing
is confident that his people will face these challenges with
the same determination as their forefathers who faced Everest.
"I believe little has changed in the Sherpa heart," he writes,
"for whether I meet my family and friends at Everest base
camp or Kathmandu, in San Francisco or London, the bond of
Sherpa kinship and tradition runs deep and strong."
Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind mountain climber to reach
the summit of Everest, is the author of Touch the Top of the
World
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