Kanchha Sherpa, last survivor of 1953 Everest expedition, dies at 92

Guwahati: Kanchha Sherpa, the last surviving member of the historic 1953 expedition that saw Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay become the first to summit Mount Everest, passed away on Thursday at the age of 92 in Nepal's capital, Kathmandu.

Born in 1933, Sherpa was only 19 when he joined the expedition as a porter.

Despite having no prior mountaineering experience, he reached over 8,000 meters (26,200 feet), near the summit.

In recent years, hundreds of climbers now followed the well-established paths to Everest's peak, contributing to a thriving multimillion-dollar mountaineering industry.

However, the 1953 team navigated the mountain with no established routes, trekking over two weeks to reach the base camp while carrying tents, food, and other essential gear.

"Everyone walked from there because there weren’t any roads, no motor vehicles, no planes," Sherpa told AFP in 2013. He remembered the journey as both challenging and ultimately rewarding, though he expressed regret that the contributions of his fellow team members weren't more widely acknowledged. "Everyone knows Tenzing and Hillary climbed Everest, but no one knows how hard we worked along the way," he said.

Sherpa's journey to Everest began in his teenage years when he ran away from his home in Namche Bazaar, now a bustling tourist hub on the route to Everest’s base camp, to Darjeeling in India.

He sought work with Tenzing, who had already established himself in the area as a mountaineering icon.

Initially, Sherpa did odd jobs for Tenzing before returning to his home region as part of the British expedition, earning only a few Nepali rupees each day.

Over time, the name "Sherpa" became synonymous with skilled high-altitude guides, as members of the ethnic group took on the demanding and often dangerous tasks of carrying equipment, setting ropes, and repairing ladders.

For two decades, Sherpa worked in the mountains before his wife urged him to stop, after many of his friends had lost their lives assisting climbing expeditions.

He later ran a lodge in Namche and founded an organization in his name, providing educational support to families unable to afford schooling for their children.

From his lodge, Sherpa witnessed the profound changes that the growth of the mountaineering industry brought to the Everest region.

In a 2019 interview with local television, Sherpa reflected on the legacy of the 1953 climb, saying, “Tenzing and Hillary opened our eyes and made development possible here.”