It is the highest and the most forbidden place on earth. Yes, we are talking about Nepal’s Mount Everest, the highest peak on earth, which every mountaineer dream to conquer. With this dream, every spring, hundreds of foreign tourists visit Nepal. Among these, some are seasoned climbers, and some are not. But when they take on the task to scale the Everest, they will all have one thing in common – Sherpa. Remember, even when New Zealand’s Edmund Hillary became the first man to scale Mount Everest, he had a Sherpa – Tenzing Norgay by his side. Hillary’s climb wouldn’t have been a success had the latter not been by his side.

Recalling that moment, Karma Tsering, a former high-altitude Sherpa said, “When Hillary summitted Everest, he gave watches as a bonus to Sherpas. We learned how to tell time using those watches.”

Sherpa is an indigenous tribe of the Himalayas, responsible for accompanying and carrying the luggage of the mountaineers while scaling the Everest. They live in one of the highest and most remote places on the planet, separated from civilization by a wall of mountains. These Sherpas have virtually no other work but to carry the luggage of the mountaineers. Interestingly, it is next to impossible for the climbers to even imagine not having a Sherpa while climbing the mountain.

“I climb mountains to retrace the lost dreams of my father. He was somewhere near the south summit of the Mount Everest, when he lost most of his fingers due to frostbite in his first Everest expedition. Dreams are always special, whether it’s yours or that of your family. I feel proud today not because I have climbed Mount Everest 9 times, but because I have touched, felt and sensed the perfect dreams of my father”, says LhapkaNuru Sherpa.

However, since then, within a span of 3-4 generations the Sherpas have transformed from being an agrarian and pastoral society, with very few resources to be well educated and technologically advanced. Today one can easily see this tribe as an educated community with some healthcare facilities. “The change has been good because it has brought us wealth. Life now feels a little rushed, but the people here earn an income. My only worry is the global warming, now it does not snow much in the mountain”, says Kancha Sherpa, a 1953 Everest expedition veteran. But a lot of people from Khumjung, the village closest to the Mount Everest, go to other countries like the USA, Europe and Japan. Explaining the trend, Mahendra Kathet, headmaster of Kumjhung School says, “People are not satisfied with the small money that comes from tourism. They want to earn big money and change their lifestyles.”

Why the Sherpas do the most dangerous job

According to recent (2017) statistics around 32 Sherpas have died while guiding mountaineers during the Everest expedition. This statistic makes the job of these Sherpas the ‘most deadly’ on Earth. The Sherpas are required to carry the gears of the climbers including several heavy bags, which often include luxury items right from imported food to even dining table, while scaling the Everest.

“Every year when the expeditions begin, there is a sense of fear in every Sherpa’s mind. When you see the faces of the children before their fathers begin their expedition, you will see a sense of helplessness, as they fear that they might not see them alive again,” said NorbuTenzing, son of Tenzing Norgay who was the first Sherpa to climb the Everest in 1953.

Tenzing Norgay was an early success story of the Sherpas. His success offered him enough earning so that his family could look beyond mountaineering. His son today lives and works in San Francisco but the situation of the people from his community still concerns him. “People’s lives are being risked. They are being taken advantage of,” he says.

Hazards of being a Sherpa

“If something goes wrong, there is nothing you can do. You just depend on your luck and you just go for it. It all then depends on one’s faith”, says Jangbu Sherpa, widow of a Sherpa who died in a 2014 avalanche.

She now lives with her baby in the city of Kathmandu. She recalls the last time she had talked to her husband over the phone and how he had promised to return soon. She says that no Sherpa wife is comfortable when her husband goes to scale the mountain.

The fatal risk that the Sherpas take time and again purely stems out of their need to lead a better life for themselves and their families and of course to earn money. On an average, a Sherpa guide typically earns up to 60000 rupees during the climbing season which spans over three months, which is 10 times the salary of an average Nepali. But many argue that this wage is not enough, especially after taking the dangers involved into account.

The avalanche of 18 April 2014 killed 16 Sherpas. It is still considered as the worst accident to have claimed so many lives in the mountain’s history. It had completely shocked the Sherpa community. Another avalanche hit the base camp of the Mount Everest as a result of a massive earthquake that hit Nepal in 2015. A total of 19 people were killed in the avalanche, including 11 Sherpas. But the extreme weather conditions are not the only enemy of these Sherpas. Sadly enough, the Sherpas are being exploited by expedition companies that they work for and also their government.

The government of Nepal charges around 7 lakh rupees as permit fees for every foreigner wanting to climb Mount Everest. According to rough estimates, the mountain climbing industry of Nepal is worth 360 million dollars, annually, which constitutes 2 % of the nation’s GDP.

Given the fact that the government is making money out of mountain climbing, it can be assumed that the Nepalese government don’t want to see any reduction in the numbers of people climbing the mountain. This also makes it very evident as to why the Nepal government has been increasing the number of permits annually despite the number of injuries incurred by the assisting Sherpas is on the rise.

Guy Cotter who started the very expedition company to climb Mount Everest back in 1992 says that he charges money from experienced climbers. But a major concern is that increasingly, fly-by-night competitors are taking money from novices, which in turn means increasing risks for the Sherpas trying to get these amateurs to the top of the mountain. “There are many, many people on the mountain. The moment you see them you will be able to realise that they have never climbed a mountain,” Cotter says.

In 2017, a 60-year-old Pakistani climber Abdul Zabar Bhati arrived at the Everest claiming to be an experienced climber. Instead he was found out to be so slow that most of the experienced Sherpas refused to accompany him for the climb. But a rookie Sherpa named Sange wasn’t given a choice. He was instructed by his company to accompany Bhati.

During the climb when Sange realised that they were doomed and needed to return, Bhati did not agree. “I will go to the summit because I have paid a lot of money to the Nepal government and your company,” retorted a defiant Bhati. Sange recalls how he could not afford to leave his companion there alone even if he feared his own life. “It would spoil the Sherpa name”, he says. When both the climbers reached the ‘Death Zone’ they collapsed. Rescue team comprising several Sherpas had to be involved to get them back to the base camp in order to save their lives.

Dealing with the Death Zone

‘Death Zone’ in the Mount Everest is a place where several frozen dead bodies of climbers who failed to conquer the Everest, can still be found. These bodies have mostly been left as the risk involved to get the dead bodies back to the base camp is far too high.

According to doctors, When anyone enters the ‘Death Zone’ the body tissues of the climbers get burnt to release energy to keep them warm and alive and so the climber can stay there for only a limited period. Oxygen level at the ‘Death Zone’ is about a third of what it is at the sea level, meaning that the human body just doesn’t get enough air into the lungs. The brain stops working which can be incredibly confusing. People can’t decide and often just sit down at the spot.

Strangely enough, despite the risks involved, the expedition companies have now begun to sell a new service – sending Sherpas to recover dead bodies from here.

Gautam Ghosh, an Indian climber had died in the ‘Death Zone’ in 2016. In 2017, 12 Sherpas were deployed to recover his body. It took the Sherpas four hours to dig the body out and a total of 28 hours to complete the mission.

The way ahead…

Unregulated recovery of dead bodies from the Death Zone, unlimited passes through the Khumbu icefall, unlimited number of climbers, many without experience, all chasing the summit at the same time. After looking at all these facts, a very important question now arises. “Is anyone managing the world’s tallest peak?” “Is anyone taking care of the risks that the workers daily go through?” Nepal’s leader in charge of tourism, Deepak Joshi admits, “Only about 50percent of the total climbers are well trained.” But there is no conclusive response to the question of what the government is doing to save the lives of the Sherpas.

“We will definitely address this issue in the upcoming policy” is an old-fashioned typical politician’s reply. An upcoming policy that is long due ever since the deaths of the Sherpas started to rise 5 years ago. According to a report by the National Geographic magazine, the Sherpas are being given a compensation of merely around 30000 rupees, barely enough to cover a funeral. Ironically it is the western expedition companies that pay them more compensation money than some of the local ones. Considering the attitude of the government towards this issue, the future doesn’t look too bright for the Sherpas.

It’s been nearly seven decades since the first man first set his foot on the Everest. But no one at that point of time could have foreseen that climbing Mount Everest would become an ever-growing enterprise, at the cost of risking the lives of the Sherpas. Asked about how his father, Tenzing Norgay, would feel today looking at the current scenario of the Himalayas, NorbuTenzing says, “He would probably feel sorry that he actually climbed it.”

It is, therefore, time that we raise a very important question, “Is it ethical to climb the Mount Everest?” A question the answer to which we might not know, but a question which today needs to be a topic of discussion throughout the world. Only then will the Sherpas ever come out of this category of doing the most dangerous job on earth.