PostedSeptember 14, 2022, 08:04
NepalHe twice reached all peaks over 8000 meters
It is a historic feat that has just been completed by a Nepalese mountaineer, who has twice conquered the fourteen highest peaks in the world.
Sanu Sherpa reached his first 8000 meters in 2006.
AFP
Climbing the fourteen peaks over 8000 meters in the world is, for seasoned mountaineers, the goal to achieve once in a lifetime and only 50 climbers have ever achieved it. Nepalese mountaineer Sanu Sherpa is the first to achieve this feat twice.
Last month, this high mountain guide reached, for the second time in his life, the summit of Gasherbrum II (8035 meters) in Pakistan, to accompany one of his clients, a Japanese mountaineer. He had just set the historic record for the double ascent of the “8000”, designating the fourteen peaks over 8000 meters above sea level, the highest in the world. “What I did was not rocket science. I’m just doing my job,” the 47-year-old told AFP simply.
“A source of inspiration”
But Sanu Sherpa has nevertheless accomplished a feat hailed by the Nepalese Minister of Culture and Tourism, Jeevan Ram Shrestha, considering that he is “a source of inspiration for mountaineers around the world”. He began his mountaineering career as a porter and canteen helper on expeditions.
He reached his first 8,000-meter summit, Cho Oyu, in 2006, wearing old climbing shoes given to him by a colleague. He was then guiding a group of South Koreans. After Cho Oyu, “one of my foreign friends advised me to attempt the remaining seven peaks, rather than climbing the same mountain over and over again”, he recalls, “I said to myself then that I could and had to accomplish the double ascent of all the mountains” of more than 8000 meters. In 2019, he had twice conquered half of the fourteen highest peaks in the world.
«Triple ascension»
Sanu Sherpa grew up in Sankhuwasabha district in eastern Nepal, home to Mount Makalu, the fifth highest peak in the world. When many of his comrades left to climb the mountains, the young Sanu had preferred to stay in his village to cultivate potatoes and corn and to take the yaks to graze.
But at the age of thirty, he ended up leaving, becoming a mountain guide like the others, hoping that this activity would provide for the needs of the eight members of his family and also to realize his simple dream: “To be equipped with mountain equipment” .
Now, having just returned to Kathmandu from Pakistan, Sanu Sherpa is preparing to climb Manaslu, a peak he has already climbed three times, to take a client there. “I can accomplish the triple ascent” of the other peaks, he assures us, before adding: “It may also be a matter of luck”.
“Lethal Zone”
He has already reached three of the 14 “8000” summits three times. He even reached the summit of Everest seven times. It is the Sherpas who have always taken care of the logistics and security and ensured the success of the expeditions undertaken by these foreign mountaineers. The ascent to the “roof of the world” costs its customers on average more than 45,000 dollars. Long overshadowed by climbers from elsewhere, Nepalese mountain guides from the valleys of Everest form the basis of the Himalayan mountaineering industry.
Only recently have their own exploits been gradually recognized. But they pay a heavy price, their profession is dangerous. Beyond 8000 m, where oxygen becomes scarce, mountaineers enter the “lethal zone”. Each year, more than ten climbers die on “the 8000” of Nepal. About a third of the Everest fatalities are Nepalese guides and porters. “I came across many dead bodies along the mountain,” says Sanu Sherpa, “how would my family and children live if I met the same fate?”
Sherpa’s family often tell him that he’s had enough of it in the mountains and now it’s time to hang up his ice axes. “Sometimes I want to stop and sometimes I don’t (…) What to do apart from climbing? There is no other prospect”.
(AFP)