KATHMANDU: The last surviving member of the first mountaineering expedition to successfully reach the summit of Mount Everest died in Kathmandu on Thursday aged 92, his family said.
Kanchha Sherpa was a teenager when he accompanied the historic 1953 team led by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa, who became the first mountaineers to reach the summit of the world’s highest mountain.
The cause of Kanchha Sherpa’s death early Thursday morning was not clear.
“He had been ill for a few days,” said his grandson, Tenzing Chogyal Sherpa AFP.
Born in 1933, Kanchha Sherpa was 19 when he joined the expedition as a porter despite having no previous mountaineering experience.
He made the arduous trek lasting more than two weeks to Mount Everest’s base camp with food, tents and equipment before climbing to an altitude of more than 8,000 meters (26,200 feet) near the summit.
“He was a living legend and an inspiration to everyone in mountaineering and those working in the industry,” said Fur Gelje Sherpa, the president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association. “We have lost our guardian.”
Kanchha Sherpa worked in the Himalayas for another two decades after the expedition until his wife asked him to stop the dangerous journeys after many of his friends died helping other climbers, his family said.
