PROFILE: SARAY KHUMALO
We chat to the first black woman from Africa to summit Everest.
In 2017, South African mountaineer Saray Khumalo had basically been left for dead shortly after reaching Camp IV – infamously known as ‘The Death Zone’.
‘I had a real shot at the summit; unfortunately, it was really windy that day so we couldn’t go any further. I saw that my Sherpa, Nawang, was struggling as much as I was, so I said to him: “I’ve got extra oxygen; why don’t we come back tomorrow when the winds are better”,’ Saray recalls. ‘When we went back down I lost consciousness, and the wind was so bad that our tent was blown off. Nawang made a makeshift tent for us and I regained consciousness only eight hours later.’
When she finally came to, the -36˚C temperature had taken its toll. ‘I had frostbite on my hands and feet. I think they must have thought I was dead. They came with a stretcher to take my body down to Camp II (6 460m above sea level). I just got up and told them that I didn’t want to be carried down; I wanted to walk down on my own. Even though all the other Sherpas had left the camp, Nawang stayed with me; I will always be grateful to him,’ she says.
Saray was then airlifted to a hospital in Kathmandu before returning to South Africa – broken and defeated.
Two years later, the 48-year-old mother of two returned home to a very different scenario: as she stepped off the plane at OR Tambo International Airport, she was greeted by hundreds of cheering South Africans. On 16 May 2019 Saray had finally summited Mount Everest after three attempts, becoming the first black African woman to reach the top (8 848m above sea level).
‘It was quite unexpected. After landing in Kathmandu and dealing with the BBC journalists at the hotel, I knew there would be some excitement when I got home,’ she explains. ‘But I wasn’t expecting such a big, warm welcome – people from different backgrounds were there. It was just humbling. It was a feelgood South African moment and a triumph for women, I felt.’
Saray’s love of adventure started long before her first expedition in 2014. She laughs when I ask whether she dreamed of becoming a mountaineer as a child growing up in Lusaka, Zambia. ‘Mountain climbing is something I started only in 2012, but as a child I was always adventurous. I’m one of
seven daughters and I was the tomboy of the family,’ she says with a smile. ‘If anything needed to be fetched from the roof, they sent me; if something got stuck in a tree or whatever, they sent me. I’ve always been out there.’
Her interest developed when she decided to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania to raise funds for a children’s home in Benoni. ‘We were trying to raise money to build an outdoor gym and a library, worth R200 000,’ the Momentum business executive says. There was a moment in particular that she identifies as the one that gave her purpose. ‘One of the kids there was so surprised that I looked like them but I was doing these amazing things; they genuinely wanted to know how I did it,’ Saray recalls. ‘I come from the township, you know, and that made me realise that there was a need for young people to be motivated and to be shown that they can do anything.’
She says many people told her that a black African woman would never be able to summit Everest. ‘People have many prejudices, not just because of the colour of our skin but because of our gender. It’s exciting to prove them wrong. I pray that when they see a person who looks like me that they will give them respect based on their capabilities, and not what they look like.’ Determined to prove the naysayers wrong, Saray set her sights on the Seven Summits – Everest, Aconcagua, Denali, Elbrus, Vinson Massif, Carstensz Pyramid and Kilimanjaro. So far, she has summited four.
During her first attempt to summit Everest in 2014, the mountain was closed after 16 Sherpas were killed by falling rocks. On Saray’s second attempt in 2015, she didn’t even make it to the mountain, as an earthquake had just ripped through Nepal, killing 8 000 people. Her first real attempt happened in 2017, when she nearly died. ‘Unfortunately, that’s just the name of the game. I was a lot calmer this time because it felt right – if it’s your time to go, then it’s your time.’
She is still in disbelief about the entire experience. ‘At the top you walk through a lot of ridges and you think you’re at the top when you’re not, so the Sherpas keep saying, “Keep going”,’ she says. ‘When you finally get there, you see these flags and after that you just see nothing. It’s a drop – and all you can make out is a sea of mountains, and it’s blue and you can see the sun on the horizon. It is just beautiful. You cannot capture that on camera – it’s nature in all its finery. You’re actually standing on top of the world.
‘I was mesmerised by what I could see. When you get to the top of the mountain the moon is closer than you’ve ever seen it before. Is this a drawing? Is this a movie? It’s just humbling, really, when you realise that you’re just a speck in the bigger scheme of things.’
Although she took a moment to stand in awe of the view, that did not stop the slowly creeping dread: She and her eight team members
‘I was mesmerised by what I could see. When you get to the top of the mountain the moon is closer than you’ve ever seen it before.’
would still have to make it back down the mountain – an equally dangerous task.
A mere 200m from camp, disaster struck when teammate Seamus Lawless fell to his death. The 39-year-old Irish professor is said to have unbuckled his safety belt when a freak wind whisked him over the edge of the mountain. ‘When they told me he had died, I just couldn’t believe it. But as time went by, I realised that he was really dead,’ Saray says. ‘I knew him for about a month and he was an amazing person: very knowledgeable, very fun-loving. I’ve got pictures of him jumping around; no one would think he was a professor. His aim was to become the youngest Irish person to summit Everest. He died doing what he loved; he believed in it.’ His body has not been recovered.
Former president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association Tshering Sherpa told The New York Times that a third of the bodies of those who have died on Everest remain there. Retrieving bodies from the top of the mountain is extremely dangerous, as a frozen body can weigh more than 300kg. Carrying this extra weight over dangerous terrain and in erratic weather puts climbers in a lifethreatening position.
This year has proven to be one of the deadliest ever on Everest: at the end of May, there had been an astounding 11 fatalities. An image that has been making the rounds on social media (of a long queue of oxygen-starved climbers snaking all the way to the summit) highlights a possible reason for the fatalities: overcrowding. Filmmaker and mountaineer Elia Saikaly writes on Instagram: ‘I cannot believe what I saw up there. Death. Carnage. Chaos. Lin Beuuypinsg.D me am deb not ode is esaton the route .’
a market in Ponta Malongane.
Fortunately, Saray just missed the overcrowding but did spot the long queue on her way down the mountain. ‘I didn’t see any dead bodies and I’m very alert to that type of thing. I do know that someone in one of the camps died, but I didn’t personally see anything,’ she says.
Saray is slowly adjusting to normal life since her return. ‘It’s been overwhelming – it’s done now and I got to see my sons [aged 16 and 21] and my family. I’m more relaxed as I don’t have to stress about how my family’s doing,’ she says. ‘I’m excited to see my colleagues and get back to work.’
But Everest is by no means her last climb. Saray still plans on summiting Denali (US), Carstensz Pyramid (Indonesia) and Mount Vinson Massif (Antarctica).
Her advice to women who wish to conquer their own challenges and mountains? ‘We are stronger than we believe and we mustn’t let anybody tell us any different. We should keep pushing. There’s no point in giving up because you will never succeed if you give up. As women, the only way we’re going to leave the world a better place for the next generation is to keep pushing and opening doors for them.’