Sanu Sherpa, the Nepalese conquered…twice the 14 highest peaks in the world – Liberation

Former porter and canteen helper in the expeditions of other mountaineers, the 47-year-old Nepalese had reached his first 8,000-meter summit, Cho Oyu, in 2006. He was then wearing old climbing shoes given to him by a colleague. .

“What I did was not rocket science. I’m just doing my job”. Guide for others and mountaineer for himself, the Nepalese Sanu Sherpa plays it modest. However, in August he became the first to have succeeded twice in what normally constitutes the feat of a single lifetime: the ascent of the 14 peaks over 8,000 meters in the world. So far, only 50 climbers have managed these climbs once.

Last month, this high mountain guide reached, for the second time in his life, the summit of Gasherbrum II (8,035 meters) in Pakistan, to accompany one of his clients, a Japanese mountaineer. He had just set the historic record for the double ascent of 8,000, designating the 14 peaks over 8,000 meters in altitude, the highest in the world, which he has now already climbed at least twice each.

But Sanu Sherpa, 47, nevertheless accomplished a feat hailed by Nepal’s Minister of Culture and Tourism, Jeevan Ram Shrestha, saying 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.

After the 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 remembers, “I said to myself that I could and should accomplish the double ascent of all the mountains” over 8000m. In 2019, he had twice conquered half of the 14 highest peaks in the world.

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.

Seven times to the top of Everest

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 summit he has already climbed three times, to take a client there. “I can accomplish the triple ascent” other summits, he assures us, before adding: “it may also be a matter of luck”.

He has already reached three of the 14 peaks of the 8000 on three occasions. He has 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 rise of “roof of the world” costs its customers more than $45,000 on average.

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 8,000 m, where oxygen becomes scarce, mountaineers enter “lethal zone”. Each year, more than a dozen climbers die out of the 8,000 in Nepal. About a third of the Everest fatalities are Nepali guides and porters.

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 quit and sometimes I don’t. […] What to do other than climb? there is no other perspective”.