By Paavan Mathema, AFP
Kanchha Sherpa, the only surviving member of the first successful Everest expedition, has died in Kathmandu on 16 October aged 92, his family said. Photo: ROBIC UPADHAYAY / AFP
Kanchha Sherpa was the last surviving member of the 1953 expedition that saw Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa become the first to summit the world's highest mountain.
Born in 1933, Sherpa was 19 when he was engaged as a porter on the expedition, and climbed above 8000 metres (26,200 feet) - close to the peak - with no prior mountaineering experience.
He died in Nepal's capital on Thursday (local time), aged 92.
Hundreds now follow in his footsteps to the summit of Everest each year, fuelling a multimillion-dollar mountaineering industry.
But while today's climbers follow a well-trodden route set by experienced Nepali guides, the team navigated the mountain on their own.
They trekked for more than two weeks to the base camp while carrying the tents, food and other equipment needed.
"Everyone walked from there because there weren't any roads, no motor vehicles, no planes," Kanchha Sherpa told AFP in 2013.
He remembered it as an arduous but ultimately joyous affair -- although he regretted that the glory had not been more equally shared among the team.
"Everyone knew Tenzing and Hillary climbed Everest but nobody knows how hard we worked along the way," he said.
Sherpa was still a teenager when he ran away from his home in Namche Bazaar - now the biggest tourist hub on the route to the Everest base camp - to Darjeeling in India, looking for Tenzing in hopes of finding work.
Tenzing had already established himself in the Indian hilltown, the starting point for mountaineering expeditions at the time.
At first, the teenager did chores at his mentor's house.
Months later he returned to his home region as a member of the British expedition, paid a daily pittance of just a few Nepali rupee coins.
Over the years, the name "Sherpa" has become synonymous with high-altitude guides.
Members of the ethnic group have become the backbone of the mountaineering industry, bearing huge risks to carry equipment and food, fix ropes and repair ladders.
Sherpa worked in the mountains for two decades more until his wife asked him to stop his dangerous journeys, after many of his friends had died assisting other climbing expeditions.
He ran a lodge in Namche and led a foundation in his name that supported families unable to afford schooling for their children.
From the windows of his lodge, Sherpa witnessed first-hand the transformation of the Everest region.
In a 2019 interview with local television he said: "Tenzing and Hillary opened our eyes and made development possible here."
- AFP
