Was it Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay who conquered Mount Everest in 1953, or Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary? Although the two men weren’t particularly fussed about the question of who reached the summit first — they were a team — speculation abounded until Tenzing put it to rest in his autobiography two years later: “Hillary stepped on top first.” It was, perhaps, a prelude to the inequity in recognition: Two men climbed to the top of the world; one was knighted, the other was referred to as a “helper” or “porter”. Time would, arguably, redress the balance, with TIME magazine ranking both among the 100 most influential people of the 20th century in 1999.
The years brought recognition to Kanchha Sherpa, too — the last surviving member of that famous expedition, he died aged 92 on October 16. He was one of three Sherpas who reached the final camp with Hillary and Tenzing. Upon hearing on the radio that the duo had reached the summit, “We danced, hugged, and kissed. It was a moment of pure joy,” Kanchha would later recall. He continued with his own mountaineering career until 1973.
The decades after 1953 also saw the home of the Sherpas become a magnet for tourism. Often sought out by the media in his later years, Kanchha could see both sides of the coin: He recognised how tourism benefited the local economy, but worried about its impact on the environment. “If we stop the tourists to save the mountains, we don’t have anything to do,” he told ClimateWire in 2011. Melting ice, he believed, was the result of more and more people trampling on sacred ground, angering the gods. Kanchha’s death is a moment to pay tribute to the spirit of adventure and human fortitude, but perhaps also a time to reflect on how fame and recognition affect people, communities and the physical environment.
