The story of a hero “Namgyal Sherpa”
Namgyal Sherpa, who was born and raised in the Sherpa village of Shim Kharka, hailed from a very poor family,lacking a formal education, he left his village at a young age and started struggling in Kathmandu. First he worked as a porter for an expedition company, and later as a cook.
Eventually he became sirdar (lead guide) on 8000m+ expeditions. “I’m a climber and I can say frankly that I’m a little bit angry when I climb Mount Everest because of the rubbish,”
“If we keep the mountains clean, the people can get fresh water, you know, the clean water. Then people cannot get diseases, people cannot get ill” Namgyal said.
He wanted to deliver a message, not only to Nepal but to world: please keep the mountains clean.
Under this initiative, he became the promoter and leader of Extreme Everest Expedition 2010, guiding a Nepali team to clean approximately 4,000 pounds of garbage, remove a number of corpses and bring back 2 dead bodies from the “death zone”, located above 8,000 m. That was the first time in the history that climbers reached to death zone to clean the rubbishes generated over time since the first ascent in 1953.
In the midst of this legendary task, many incidents happened, letting Namgyal need to spend over 2 hours on his own to release a dead body from the grip of the unyielding mountain, he was exhausted and cried because the task was much arduous than his expectation.
Nonetheless, he did it, he made this remarkable task done with the Nepali team in the year of 2010.
Sadly, Namgyal passed away in May 2013 on a descent from the summit of Everest. His spirit and infectious enthusiasm will never be forgotten.
Many elite climbers and guides start from being porters, and their humble and respect to nature deserves all the worship.
This time, not only respect porters, but also respect Sherpa and last but not least, respect Namgyal Sherpa. Keep the mountains clean, keep his spirit last forever and ever.
