Kancha Sherpa, Last Surviving Member of the First Everest Expedition, Passes Away
Kancha Sherpa, the last surviving member of the successful 1953 first ascent of Mount Everest led by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, passed away at the age of 92 on Thursday morning at his residence in Kathmandu.
According to his family, Ang Phurba ‘Kancha’ Sherpa died around 2:00 AM on Thursday. Sherpa had spent his final days at his ancestral home in Namche Bazaar, widely known as the gateway to Mount Everest.
Phur Gyalje Sherpa, President of the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA), said, “The passing of ‘Kancha’ Sherpa has caused us deep sorrow. The absence of this great personality, who was connected to the history of the first successful Everest ascent, is a unique loss. This is an irreparable loss to the Nepali tourism sector.”
Life and the Historic Ascent
Kancha Sherpa was born in Namche in 1932. At the age of 19, he ran away from home in search of work and reached Darjeeling, India, where he met Tenzing Norgay Sherpa.
Upon learning that Kancha was the son of a mountaineer from the 1952 Everest expedition, Tenzing helped him join Sir Edmund Hillary’s 1953 expedition. He was one of 103 Sherpas on the expedition and was paid a wage of five rupees per day.
Kancha Sherpa continued working on mountaineering expeditions until 1973, when he retired at the request of his wife. After retiring, he continued to help travelers by guiding trekking groups in the Himalayas.
Though Kancha Sherpa himself did not reach the summit of Everest, he played a crucial role in the expedition’s success, reaching the final camp (the current South Summit).
In a 2020 interview with the National News Agency (RSS), he recalled the initial days of the expedition, saying, “We set out from Bhaktapur with 35 climbers and 400 porters. There were no roads, no hotels, just walking and eating roasted corn.”
He stated that building the route to Camp I was the most challenging task. There were deep crevasses in the Khumbu Icefall. “We didn’t have ladders. So, we went back to Namche, cut ten pine trees, carried them up, and built a wooden bridge.”
According to him, at that time, Everest was not officially called ‘Sagarmatha’ in Nepali; locals knew it as ‘Chomolungma’. After the expedition established Camp Four, Hillary and Tenzing proceeded to the summit.
Their success was confirmed on May 29, 1953, around 1 PM via a radio message. Kancha recalled, “We danced, hugged, and kissed. That was a moment of complete joy.”
In recognition of his contribution, his daily wage was increased to eight rupees. With the passing of Kancha Sherpa, all members of the first successful Everest expedition are now no longer in this world.
(ANI)
