Last surviving member of first team to conquer Everest dies aged 92

Kanchha Sherpa was part of expedition that put Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary atop world’s highest peak in 1953 Kanchha Sherpa, the last surviving member of the mountaineering expedition team that first conquered Mount Everest, has died at the age of 92, according to the Nepal Mountaineering Association. Kanchha died early on Thursday at his home in Kapan, Kathmandu district, said Phur Gelje Sherpa, the association’s president. “He passed away peacefully at his residence,” Phur Gelje said, explaining that Kanchha had been unwell for some time. “A chapter of the mountaineering history has vanished with him,” he added. Kanchha was among the 35 members of the team that put the New Zealander Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay atop the 8,849-metre (29,032ft) peak on 29 May 1953. He was one of three Sherpas to reach the final camp before the summit with Hillary and Tenzing. Kanchha never climbed to the summit of Everest himself as his wife considered it too risky, he said in an interview in March 2024. He also forbade his children from becoming mountaineers. He was well liked and widely respected in the climbing community, said Ang Tshering Sherpa of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, adding that Kanchha “was full of energy and even after retiring and in his old age, he was trekking to monasteries all over the Everest region for religious ceremonies”. Tenzing died in 1986; Hillary died in 2008. Kanchha was born in 1933 in the village of Namche in the Everest foothills, when most members of Nepal’s Sherpa community earned a living by farming potatoes and herding yaks. He spent his childhood and young adult years trading potatoes in neighbouring Tibet. When he and several friends later visited Darjeeling, India, he was persuaded to train for mountain climbing and began working with foreign trekkers. Kanchha began mountaineering when he was 19 and remained active in the expedition sector until the age of 50. In 1953, his father’s friendship with Norgay helped Kanchha secure a job as a high-altitude porter for Tenzing and Hillary when they made the world’s first summit of Everest. He was one of three Sherpas who reached the last camp below the summit, above the 7,900-metre South Col, and heard of the successful ascent on the radio. The three Sherpas were reunited with Tenzing and Hillary back at Camp 2 at about 6,400 metres. “We all gathered at Camp 2 but there was no alcohol so we celebrated with tea and snacks,” he said. “We then collected whatever we could and carried it to base camp.” Kanchha made other Everest climbs over the years, reaching various altitudes. In an interview with the Associated Press in March 2024, he expressed concerns about overcrowding and filth at the world’s highest peak. He urged people to respect the mountain, revered as the mother goddess Qomolangma among the Sherpas. Members of the community generally perform religious rituals before climbing the peak. “It would be better for the mountain to reduce the number of climbers,” he said. “Qomolangma is the biggest god for the Sherpas. But people smoke and eat meat and throw them on the mountain.” Kanchha is survived by his wife, four sons, two daughters and grandchildren.