‘Just doing my job,’ says Nepali climber

Summiting the world’s 8,000-meter mountains is the ultimate bucket list dream for ambitious climbers, a feat managed by fewer than 50 people, and Sanu Sherpa is the first to do it twice.

The Nepali climber’s summit of Pakistan’s Gasherbrum II (8,035 meters) in August completed his unprecedented double ascent of the eightthousanders – as the 14 peaks are collectively known.

As usual, he was guiding a paying customer – this time a Japanese climber – to the top.

“What I have done is not something that is impossible,” the 47-year-old told AFP. “I was just doing my job.”

Sherpa, who began working in mountaineering as a porter and kitchen aid, climbed his first 8,000-meter peak in 2006 while guiding a South Korean group to the summit of Cho Oyu.

“I felt like the Korean climbers would not be able to summit the mountain, but I had to as I would not get work if I returned unsuccessfully,” he said.

Nepali guides – usually ethnic Sherpas from the valleys around Qomolangma – are considered the backbone of the climbing industry in the Himalayas. They carry the majority of equipment and food, fix ropes and repair ladders.

It can be a perilous occupation. Altitudes above 8,000 meters are considered a “death zone,” where there is not enough oxygen in the air to sustain human life for long periods.

On average, 14 people die every year on the eight eightthousanders in Nepal. About a third of deaths on Qomolangma are Nepali guides and porters, underscoring the risks they take to enable their clients’ dreams of reaching the world’s highest peaks.

“I have seen many dead bodies while going up or descending the mountain,” said Sherpa.

“I am walking the same route or the same mountain,” he added. “How would my family and children live if I met the same fate?”

Sherpa grew up in Sankhuwasabha district in eastern Nepal – an impoverished and remote rural area that includes Makalu, the world’s fifth-highest mountain. He was farming potatoes and corn, and grazing yaks at the age of 30.