Last surviving member of pioneering Mount Everest expedition dies

"Kanchha Sherpa was among the 35 members of the team that put New Zealander Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay atop the 8,849-meter (29,032-foot) peak on May 29, 1953. A mountain guide for most of his life, he was one of three Sherpas to reach the final camp before the summit with Hillary and Tenzing. But he never climbed to the summit of Everest himself, as his wife considered it too risky, he said in a March 2024 interview."

"Well-liked and widely respected in the climbing community, Kanchha was full of energy, and even after retiring and in his old age, he was trekking to monasteries all over the Everest region for religious ceremonies, said Ang Tshering Sherpa of the Nepal Mountaineering Association. Kanchha was born in 1933 in the village of Namche in the Everest foothills, when most members of Nepal's Sherpa community earned their livings farming potatoes and herding yaks."

Kanchha Sherpa died at age 92 at his home in Kapan in Kathmandu after a period of ill health. He was the last surviving member of the 35-person team that placed Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay on Everest's 8,849-meter summit on May 29, 1953. He reached the final camp with Hillary and Tenzing but did not summit himself because his wife considered it too risky. He forbade his children from becoming mountaineers. Born in 1933 in Namche, he worked as a mountain guide until age 50, trekked to monasteries for religious ceremonies in later life, and had earlier traded potatoes in Tibet.

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