The first people to climb Mount Everest were Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, in 1953. But no one reaches the top of the world’s highest mountain without a team of anonymous helpers.
The last living member of the Hillary-Norgay team, Kanchha Sherpa, died on Thursday, the Nepal Mountaineering Association said in a statement. He passed away at the age of 92 at his home in Kapan, Nepal, the group’s president, Phur Gelje Sherpa, told Associated Press.
Kanchha, whose name has also been spelled as Kancha, was born in 1933 in Namche, Nepal. He said he did not know the exact date of his birth.
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As a young man, he had difficulty finding work to support his family, even walking for five days in 1952 to Darjeeling, India, in search of work.
Although he had no special interest in mountaineering, Kanchha later joined a team of 35 climbers and hundreds of porters who supported Hillary, an explorer from New Zealand, and Norgay, his Sherpa guide, in their ascent of Mount Everest.
It was known a century ago that Everest was the highest point in the world, but the idea of climbing to the top seemed fanciful for most of that time. The wind, cold and thin air increased the climbing challenges.
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Few tried—notably George Mallory, who justified his attempt in 1924 by saying “because it’s there.” His remains were only found in 1999.
Still, Hillary and Norgay rose to the challenge, aided by their vast team of helpers. Kanchha carried 27 kilograms of equipment, fixed ropes and explored the path for the team. Despite injuries, cold, illness and difficulties, “I did a good job,” he told Climate Wire in 2011. “I had good clothes. It was good for me.”
Climbing without supplemental oxygen, he was one of the few team members to reach the final base camp, where they stopped. Like many porters on expeditions, his role was not to reach the top. Hillary and Norgay followed the rest of the way, to the summit at 8,848 meters above sea level.
When the team received news over the radio that the two had defied the odds and become the first to reach the top, “we danced, hugged and kissed,” Kanchha told Everest ChronicleNepal’s state news agency. “It was a moment of pure joy.”
He continued to work on the mountain until 1970, when a fatal avalanche prompted his wife, Ang Lhakpa Sherpa, to ask him to stop. He started working for a trekking company, guiding visitors to safer, lower elevations in the region.
Norgay died in 1986; Hillary in 2008.
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Kanchha is survived by his wife, four sons, two daughters, eight grandchildren and a great-granddaughter, Everest Chronicle reported.
More recently, he expressed concern about the large number of people climbing Everest and the environmental damage caused.
Still, as a mountain guide, I told the Climate Wire“If we stop the tourists to save the mountains, we won’t have anything to do. Just plant potatoes, eat and sit down.”
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