Kanchha Sherpa, the final surviving member of the mountaineering expedition group that first conquered Mount Everest, died early Thursday, based on the Nepal Mountaineering Affiliation.
Kanchha died at age 92 at his dwelling in Kapan within the Kathmandu district of Nepal, confirmed Phur Gelje Sherpa, the affiliation president.
“He handed away peacefully at his residence,” Phur Gelje Sherpa instructed The Related Press, including that he had been unwell for a while. “A chapter of the mountaineering historical past has vanished with him.”
Final rites will likely be held Monday, he mentioned.
Kanchha Sherpa was among the many 35 members of the group that put New Zealander Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa information Tenzing Norgay atop the 8,849-meter (29,032-foot) peak on Could 29, 1953. A mountain information for many of his life, he was one among three Sherpas to achieve the ultimate camp earlier than the summit with Hillary and Tenzing.
However he by no means climbed to the summit of Everest himself, as his spouse thought-about it too dangerous, he mentioned in a March 2024 interview. He forbade his kids from changing into mountaineers.
Properly-liked and extensively revered within the climbing neighborhood, Kanchha “was stuffed with power, and even after retiring and in his previous age, he was trekking to monasteries everywhere in the Everest area for spiritual ceremonies,” mentioned Ang Tshering Sherpa of the Nepal Mountaineering Affiliation.
Kanchha was born in 1933 within the village of Namche within the Everest foothills, when most members of Nepal's Sherpa neighborhood earned their livings farming potatoes and herding yaks.
He spent his childhood and younger grownup years incomes a meager dwelling via buying and selling potatoes in neighboring Tibet. When he and several other buddies later visited Darjeeling, India, he was persuaded to coach for mountaineering, and he started working with international trekkers.
He started mountaineering when he was 19 and remained energetic within the expedition sector till the age of fifty.
In 1953, his father's friendship with Tenzing Norgay helped Kanchha safe a job as a high-altitude porter for Tenzing and New Zealander Edmund Hillary after they made the world's first summit of Everest.
He was one among three Sherpas who reached the final camp under the summit, above the 7,900-meter-high (26,000-foot-high) South Col.
They first heard of the profitable ascent on the radio and have been reunited with the summit duo again at Camp 2, at round 6,400 meters (21,000 ft).
“All of us gathered at Camp 2 however there was no alcohol so we celebrated with tea and snacks,” he mentioned. “We then collected no matter we may and carried it to base camp.”
Kanchha made different Everest climbs over time, reaching numerous altitudes.
The route they opened from the bottom camp to the summit continues to be utilized by climbers. Solely the part from the bottom camp to Camp 1 over the unstable Khumbu Icefall adjustments yearly. However late in life, Kanchha had combined emotions in regards to the mountain's destiny as an journey tourism vacation spot.
In an interview with The Related Press in March 2024, he expressed issues about overcrowding and filth on the world's highest peak. He urged individuals to respect the mountain, revered because the mom goddess Qomolangma among the many Sherpas, Himalayan individuals famend as mountaineering guides.
“It will be higher for the mountain to scale back the variety of climbers,” he mentioned.
“Qomolangma is the largest god for the Sherpas,” Kanchaa added. “However individuals smoke and eat meat and throw them on the mountain.”
Kanchha's father was additionally a mountaineer and joined an unsuccessful Everest expedition from the Tibetan facet a couple of years earlier than the 1953 conquest of the height, based on Kanchha's son-in-law, Nawang Samden Sherpa.
In 2013, Kanchha was honored by the Nepalese authorities through the fiftieth anniversary of the conquest of Mount Everest, becoming a member of kin of Tenzing and Hillary in a chariot that was pushed across the capital of Kathmandu.
In his retirement, Kanchha lived in Namche, the place the household runs a small lodge catering to trekkers and climbers.
Kanchha Sherpa is survived by his spouse, 4 sons, two daughters and grandchildren.
