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Sherpas were on all the big western expeditions that I know of. Their names are just usually dropped when talking about it, which is a shame. I recently read Kr

Sherpas were on all the big western expeditions that I know of. Their names are just usually dropped when talking about it, which is a shame. I recently read Krakauer's Into Thin Air and appreciated that he treated the sherpas on the expedition as fellow humans. They figured as important as anyone else in the story. He was also careful when talking about past climbs to mention all the climbers, sherpa and otherwise. Very interesting book for me. I knew (know?) very little about mountaineering.

sebmellen 6y ago
That's very nice to hear, and I'll check the book out. While on a cruise ship last July (well, 2019) I made friends with a Nepalese security screw and we talked about Nepal and their family occupations. It's very sad to hear of how disposably sherpas are treated on the vanity tours by unskilled foreign climbers. Basically the sherpas end up dragging along their clients and they face outsized risk on the way.
strstr 6y ago
For a long time, both Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary evaded the question of who summitted Everest first. They reached the top as a team. Most of the "forgetting" seems to happen when it comes to communicating about larger, less notable expeditions.
- Someone 6y ago
  Larger? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_British_Mount_Everest_expedition#Expedition_participants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_British_Mount_Everest_exp...: “The mountaineers were accompanied […] by 362 porters, so that the expedition in the end amounted to over four hundred men, including twenty Sherpa guides from Tibet and Nepal, with a total weight of ten thousand pounds of baggage” I don’t know the details of that expedition, but typically, the sherpas make multiple trips up and down the mountain to bring the necessary material up to height, so that those paying can relatively comfortably acclimatize at height. Climbing Everest almost always is a team effort. Even if you ignore those porters , those “twenty Sherpa guides from Tibet and Nepal”, IMO, deserve to be mentioned there more than Jan Morris, who didn’t make it further up the mountain than 22,000 feet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Morris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Morris). (and aside: ten thousand pounds of baggage seems very low to me. That’s less than 30 pounds per porter ⇒ I guess that’s what made it to the highest camp)
  - HotHotLava 6y ago
    While the Sherpa were crucial to success of the expedition, it's also important not to jump to the other extreme and underestimate the contributions of the British party. This was not a "guided" expedition where the clients were just going up in the wind shadow. Back in 1953, it's pretty unlikely that sherpa party could have summitted on their own. If I remember correctly (it's a while since I read Hillary's account of the expedition), only three of the sherpa were able to go up to camp 4, and two of those them had to turn back due to altitude sickness. Tenzing Norgay did not have the technical knowledge to operate the oxygen systems. Also, crampons were far less advanced back then, so the mountaineers were also responsible for cutting steps every few days for all the routes that the porters were using to haul gear.
- sharadov 6y ago
  Hillary did a lot for the Sherpa community, and he rightfully gave Tenzing the acknowledgement that he deserved, one of the first western mountaineers to do so.
  - saiya-jin 6y ago
    If you go to Everest region in Nepal, there are schools and even airport built by him just above Namche Bazaar... truly great contribution back. He literally spent decades of his later life trying to develop mainly Sherpa communities which lived in brutal poverty, largely left on their own by central government. Let's not forget Nepal was and still is one of the poorest countries in the world. Very few benefit from tourism, and money Sherpa earn is brutal compared to rest of non-mountaineering population. Basically you either join Gurkha and fight for British, go for mountaineering career, become a corrupt government official (which you can't just join due to nepotism) or try to leave if you have money for it. This 'critique' goes both ways and kind of show its natural to humans - when both Tenzing and Hillary came back to India from Nepal (Nepal didn't have an international airport back then, and it took quite a bit of time to built one, all expeditions went through India's sea ports) - Hillary was almost completely ignored, and Tenzing was the only one to be celebrated. I understand the motivations ie due to past shameful english colonialism, plus good old nationalism. But its like that everywhere. It doesn't make it any more acceptable these days obviously.
- DeBraid 6y ago
  To emphasize your point, I'm well familiar w/ Sir Edmund, but TIL about Tenzing Norgay, thank you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenzing_Norgay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenzing_Norgay
  - EdwardDiego 6y ago
    In New Zealand, despite our somewhat child-like at times desire to be known on the world stage, we all largely know and acknowledge about Tenzing Norgay as well as Hillary - which is exactly what Sir Ed wanted.
  - dbmikus 6y ago
    They only have a photo of Norgay at the summit because Norgay didn't know how to take a picture of Hillary. Kind of ironic to me that the less famous one is the only one with the photo! Ha!
    - mthoms 6y ago
      Source? As I recall, Edmund stated he just didn't think of it in the heat (actually: cold) of the moment. They were only on the summit for a few minutes. I'd be very surprised if a man of Tenzing's calibre and achievements could not figure out something so trivial. Edit: I've found some citations that support your point, I apologize. Although, I'd add (a) Tenzing's account states that he offered to take a photo but was declined. And (b) a more fair description would be "because he had never used a camera before" rather than "didn't know how to work a camera". The later suggesting a lack of intelligence or civility (though I'm sure that wasn't your intent), I'm probably just nitpicking :-).
      - outside1234 6y ago
        There is also mysticism in some Asian cultures about photos and taking other peoples photos around stealing souls etc. This potentially could be a reason as well that he wasn’t brave enough to admit.
        6y ago
ignoramous 6y ago
For K2, it is usually the Pakistani porters from Gilgit-Baltistan: https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/pakistani-porters-the-unsung-masters-of-the-mountains-175391 https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/pakistani-porters-the-uns... > Their names are just usually dropped when talking about it, which is a shame. Reminds me of Amir Mehdi's story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amir_Mehdi#K2_(1954) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amir_Mehdi#K2_(1954)
- saiya-jin 6y ago
  Very few locals historically went above base camp, it used to be really tricky to even get them to deliver goods to base camp. They were afraid, always broke previously agreed contract, tried to negotiating extra money. Plus had ridiculously bad clothing/shoes for such an environment. Basically every expedition in Pakistan in the past struggled with this, and they even had an additional budget for this.
bitL 6y ago
And yet Krakauer had no issues throwing a guy, who tried to save some of the members of his team, under the bus when Krakauer messed up, and turned a hero into a villain.
- ceocoder 6y ago
  Jon Krakauer has responded to Anatoli Boukreev here[0], it seems as like most things in life, there is more nuance this than just hero villain dichotomy. [0] https://medium.com/galleys/a-postscript-to-into-thin-air-e238d464a256 https://medium.com/galleys/a-postscript-to-into-thin-air-e23...
  - bitL 6y ago
    That Kazakh person can't defend himself any longer and Krakauer's story is highly suspicious due to glaring holes/omissions - perfect knowledge of the incoming storm yet deciding to move forward, "hallucinated all the way down" as a defense for not helping Beck Weathers, sleeping in a tent while Anatoli was saving clients, expecting from the barely surviving Kazakh climber a perfect knowledge of English etc. Krakauer is a talented writer writing compelling stories but his throwing mud on a deceased climber who managed to save all his clients in the death zone that night is just disgusting.
    - saiya-jin 6y ago
      This. He writes good, but its kind of accepted in climbing community that he really messed up with Everest disaster, lied, tried to blame others for his own fails etc.
      - arcticfox 6y ago
        Source? Because his response to The Climb, linked above, seems pretty damning. Edit: found a source to balance, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB864852385619851000 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB864852385619851000
tweetle_beetle 6y ago
I'd say that the days of Sherpas being completely invisible have passed. There is now something of a noble savage mystique around them, unhelpful in its own way. You get brownie points for virtue signalling about your gratitude to Sherpas today. They often get to keep gear that their clients no longer need after their trip, for example. Hopefully their status continues to rise. What is somewhat sadder is the fate of the porters on which almost every expedition and trek, except the purest of pure self-supported alpine expeditions, still relies. These are poor people who are typically from the lowlands, acting as sole breadwinners for their families, doing difficult, dangerous manual labor at high altitude without beneficial genetic adaptations or decent clothing. There are some good small charities trying to improve their conditions, for example https://www.canepal.org.uk/ https://www.canepal.org.uk/
- furyg3 6y ago
  > except the purest of pure self-supported alpine expeditions Do these exist? From what I understand Sherpas are the ones building the routes every year... So even if you hike alone, pack all of your stuff into base camp alone (good luck! many trips), carry all your own ladders and ropes, and pack all of your stuff up to each subsequent camp alone... you're still hiking on routes that Sherpas built at the beginning of the season...
  - tweetle_beetle 6y ago
    The use of Sherpas to open routes is restricted to a relatively small number of the most popular and lucrative routes, usually in Nepal. Most "proper" climbers look down on any notion of routes bring prepared - fixed equipment, ladders, etc. There are a good number of expeditions of a higher standard of mountain ethics which still happen and still many new routes to claim in the Himalayas. But these are far removed from the world of the stereotype of the type of person who wants to climb Everest who get all the media attention - look up Nick Cienski for a good example of virtue signalling, ego and narcism. If you're interested, The Alpine Journal is an excellent resource for capturing all the lesser known alpinists doing amazing things with little to no media attention and a tiny budget. Among the low key mountaineers the is even a bit of a culture of not reporting first ascents, due to the bureaucratic nature of permits - allowed to climb one peak, but not one next door. Those in the know, who are looking for a more pure climbing experience, prefer India and Pakistan where permits are easier to obtain, there are virtually no climbers and hundreds of new routes to do in unspoilt valleys.

sebmellen 6y ago

That's very nice to hear, and I'll check the book out. While on a cruise ship last July (well, 2019) I made friends with a Nepalese security screw and we talked about Nepal and their family occupations. It's very sad to hear of how disposably sherpas are treated on the vanity tours by unskilled foreign climbers. Basically the sherpas end up dragging along their clients and they face outsized risk on the way.

strstr 6y ago

For a long time, both Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary evaded the question of who summitted Everest first. They reached the top as a team. Most of the "forgetting" seems to happen when it comes to communicating about larger, less notable expeditions.

Someone 6y ago
Larger? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_British_Mount_Everest_expedition#Expedition_participants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_British_Mount_Everest_exp...: “The mountaineers were accompanied […] by 362 porters, so that the expedition in the end amounted to over four hundred men, including twenty Sherpa guides from Tibet and Nepal, with a total weight of ten thousand pounds of baggage” I don’t know the details of that expedition, but typically, the sherpas make multiple trips up and down the mountain to bring the necessary material up to height, so that those paying can relatively comfortably acclimatize at height. Climbing Everest almost always is a team effort. Even if you ignore those porters , those “twenty Sherpa guides from Tibet and Nepal”, IMO, deserve to be mentioned there more than Jan Morris, who didn’t make it further up the mountain than 22,000 feet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Morris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Morris). (and aside: ten thousand pounds of baggage seems very low to me. That’s less than 30 pounds per porter ⇒ I guess that’s what made it to the highest camp)
- HotHotLava 6y ago
  While the Sherpa were crucial to success of the expedition, it's also important not to jump to the other extreme and underestimate the contributions of the British party. This was not a "guided" expedition where the clients were just going up in the wind shadow. Back in 1953, it's pretty unlikely that sherpa party could have summitted on their own. If I remember correctly (it's a while since I read Hillary's account of the expedition), only three of the sherpa were able to go up to camp 4, and two of those them had to turn back due to altitude sickness. Tenzing Norgay did not have the technical knowledge to operate the oxygen systems. Also, crampons were far less advanced back then, so the mountaineers were also responsible for cutting steps every few days for all the routes that the porters were using to haul gear.
sharadov 6y ago
Hillary did a lot for the Sherpa community, and he rightfully gave Tenzing the acknowledgement that he deserved, one of the first western mountaineers to do so.
- saiya-jin 6y ago
  If you go to Everest region in Nepal, there are schools and even airport built by him just above Namche Bazaar... truly great contribution back. He literally spent decades of his later life trying to develop mainly Sherpa communities which lived in brutal poverty, largely left on their own by central government. Let's not forget Nepal was and still is one of the poorest countries in the world. Very few benefit from tourism, and money Sherpa earn is brutal compared to rest of non-mountaineering population. Basically you either join Gurkha and fight for British, go for mountaineering career, become a corrupt government official (which you can't just join due to nepotism) or try to leave if you have money for it. This 'critique' goes both ways and kind of show its natural to humans - when both Tenzing and Hillary came back to India from Nepal (Nepal didn't have an international airport back then, and it took quite a bit of time to built one, all expeditions went through India's sea ports) - Hillary was almost completely ignored, and Tenzing was the only one to be celebrated. I understand the motivations ie due to past shameful english colonialism, plus good old nationalism. But its like that everywhere. It doesn't make it any more acceptable these days obviously.
DeBraid 6y ago
To emphasize your point, I'm well familiar w/ Sir Edmund, but TIL about Tenzing Norgay, thank you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenzing_Norgay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenzing_Norgay
- EdwardDiego 6y ago
  In New Zealand, despite our somewhat child-like at times desire to be known on the world stage, we all largely know and acknowledge about Tenzing Norgay as well as Hillary - which is exactly what Sir Ed wanted.
- dbmikus 6y ago
  They only have a photo of Norgay at the summit because Norgay didn't know how to take a picture of Hillary. Kind of ironic to me that the less famous one is the only one with the photo! Ha!
  - mthoms 6y ago
    Source? As I recall, Edmund stated he just didn't think of it in the heat (actually: cold) of the moment. They were only on the summit for a few minutes. I'd be very surprised if a man of Tenzing's calibre and achievements could not figure out something so trivial. Edit: I've found some citations that support your point, I apologize. Although, I'd add (a) Tenzing's account states that he offered to take a photo but was declined. And (b) a more fair description would be "because he had never used a camera before" rather than "didn't know how to work a camera". The later suggesting a lack of intelligence or civility (though I'm sure that wasn't your intent), I'm probably just nitpicking :-).
    - outside1234 6y ago
      There is also mysticism in some Asian cultures about photos and taking other peoples photos around stealing souls etc. This potentially could be a reason as well that he wasn’t brave enough to admit.
      - 6y ago

ignoramous 6y ago

For K2, it is usually the Pakistani porters from Gilgit-Baltistan: https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/pakistani-porters-the-unsung-masters-of-the-mountains-175391 https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/pakistani-porters-the-uns... > Their names are just usually dropped when talking about it, which is a shame. Reminds me of Amir Mehdi's story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amir_Mehdi#K2_(1954) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amir_Mehdi#K2_(1954)

saiya-jin 6y ago
Very few locals historically went above base camp, it used to be really tricky to even get them to deliver goods to base camp. They were afraid, always broke previously agreed contract, tried to negotiating extra money. Plus had ridiculously bad clothing/shoes for such an environment. Basically every expedition in Pakistan in the past struggled with this, and they even had an additional budget for this.

bitL 6y ago

And yet Krakauer had no issues throwing a guy, who tried to save some of the members of his team, under the bus when Krakauer messed up, and turned a hero into a villain.

ceocoder 6y ago
Jon Krakauer has responded to Anatoli Boukreev here[0], it seems as like most things in life, there is more nuance this than just hero villain dichotomy. [0] https://medium.com/galleys/a-postscript-to-into-thin-air-e238d464a256 https://medium.com/galleys/a-postscript-to-into-thin-air-e23...
- bitL 6y ago
  That Kazakh person can't defend himself any longer and Krakauer's story is highly suspicious due to glaring holes/omissions - perfect knowledge of the incoming storm yet deciding to move forward, "hallucinated all the way down" as a defense for not helping Beck Weathers, sleeping in a tent while Anatoli was saving clients, expecting from the barely surviving Kazakh climber a perfect knowledge of English etc. Krakauer is a talented writer writing compelling stories but his throwing mud on a deceased climber who managed to save all his clients in the death zone that night is just disgusting.
  - saiya-jin 6y ago
    This. He writes good, but its kind of accepted in climbing community that he really messed up with Everest disaster, lied, tried to blame others for his own fails etc.
    - arcticfox 6y ago
      Source? Because his response to The Climb, linked above, seems pretty damning. Edit: found a source to balance, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB864852385619851000 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB864852385619851000

tweetle_beetle 6y ago

I'd say that the days of Sherpas being completely invisible have passed. There is now something of a noble savage mystique around them, unhelpful in its own way. You get brownie points for virtue signalling about your gratitude to Sherpas today. They often get to keep gear that their clients no longer need after their trip, for example. Hopefully their status continues to rise. What is somewhat sadder is the fate of the porters on which almost every expedition and trek, except the purest of pure self-supported alpine expeditions, still relies. These are poor people who are typically from the lowlands, acting as sole breadwinners for their families, doing difficult, dangerous manual labor at high altitude without beneficial genetic adaptations or decent clothing. There are some good small charities trying to improve their conditions, for example https://www.canepal.org.uk/ https://www.canepal.org.uk/

furyg3 6y ago
> except the purest of pure self-supported alpine expeditions Do these exist? From what I understand Sherpas are the ones building the routes every year... So even if you hike alone, pack all of your stuff into base camp alone (good luck! many trips), carry all your own ladders and ropes, and pack all of your stuff up to each subsequent camp alone... you're still hiking on routes that Sherpas built at the beginning of the season...
- tweetle_beetle 6y ago
  The use of Sherpas to open routes is restricted to a relatively small number of the most popular and lucrative routes, usually in Nepal. Most "proper" climbers look down on any notion of routes bring prepared - fixed equipment, ladders, etc. There are a good number of expeditions of a higher standard of mountain ethics which still happen and still many new routes to claim in the Himalayas. But these are far removed from the world of the stereotype of the type of person who wants to climb Everest who get all the media attention - look up Nick Cienski for a good example of virtue signalling, ego and narcism. If you're interested, The Alpine Journal is an excellent resource for capturing all the lesser known alpinists doing amazing things with little to no media attention and a tiny budget. Among the low key mountaineers the is even a bit of a culture of not reporting first ascents, due to the bureaucratic nature of permits - allowed to climb one peak, but not one next door. Those in the know, who are looking for a more pure climbing experience, prefer India and Pakistan where permits are easier to obtain, there are virtually no climbers and hundreds of new routes to do in unspoilt valleys.