West meets East in the Himalaya

Edmund Hillary once said that the Sherpa were the most researched, dissected and blood-taken ethnic group in the world.

Living below the highest mountains in the world, the trans-Himalayan traders were genetically adapted to high altitude, their culture spanning both sides of the border, and with average per capita income of the Khumbu five times that of the rest of Nepal.

But there are other less-known Sherpas in Nepal’s periphery: in the Langtang, Barun and Rolwaling valleys. 

Norwegian mountaineer Jon Gangdal’s latest book, Guilt & Glory: Climbing with Sherpas is about his deep personal and four-decade long association with his climbing partners from Rolwaling.

Guilt & Glory reads more like Gangdal’s memoir and the mountains he has climbed, but it is also a tribute to the selfless friendship with fellow climbers from Nepal. It also exposes the inherently asymmetric relationship between expeditions and their employees in the Himalaya.

Earlier mountaineering narratives overlooked the role of Nepal’s climbing guides in putting their clients on summits. But in recent years there has been increasing recognition that most expeditions would just not be possible without them.

SUMMIT SUPPORT

And that is where Gangdal’s book fits in: between the glory of a successful summit and guilt about not giving due credit to the sacrifice and professionalism of a people whose surname and ethnicity is now a synonym for support staff of G-7 Summits.

After failure and tragedy on a 1994 expedition on Everest West Ridge in which his climbing partner Mingma Norbu was killed in an avalanche, Gangdal is tormented by guilt and supports his widow Ang Sona and her family.

‘The Art of Succeeding When You Have Failed’ was the title of his lecture series in which Gangdal became an outspoken critic of military-style assaults on Himalayan peaks, and self-seeking climbers on them.

In a comment he wrote for Nepali Times in #704 in 2014 after an avalanche killed 16 Nepali guides on the Khumbu Icefall, he argued that equality and safety of climbing Sherpas could only happen ‘if we turn the whole Everest pyramid upside down’.

He wrote: ‘We can feel nothing but grief and pain with the families of the brave boys who gave their lives for … for what? For the glory of their nation, like at war? For the glory of their attention-seeking sahibs who have had the highest mountains in the world as their playground for more than a century? Or for what we all have to do: our daily duty to feed ourselves and our families.’

Guilt & Glory expands on that theme, weaving in his climbing adventures. He realises that the egalitarian Norwegian approach in decision-making does not work in the East’ where the prevalent notion is that a leader should lead. Gangdal notes that with a few tweaks, the twain of East and West can indeed meet.

In 1996 on the north face of Everest while a major tragedy was unfolding on the Nepal side, Gangdal tries to ‘play Sherpa’ hauling twice the load of his Sherpa companions and is knocked out with exhaustion and has to abandon the climb.

Climbers have often justified not helping fellow climbers in distress in the Death Zone saying that ethics at sea level do not apply at eight thousand metres high on a mountain.

But Gangdal quotes expedition doctor Morten Rostrup: ‘When you pass climbers who are sick or in danger on the way to the summit, you should always do something … continuing to the summit shows a lack of humanity.’

Foreign climbers are on top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and in a monastery below Manaslu, Gangdal once held a long one-sided discussion with the abbott on why people’s basic needs need to be met before higher aspirations can be pursued.

The asymmetry in the relation between sahibs and porters is less glaring than it used to be. Many mountaineers have struck life-long friendships with bonds with their employees and their families in Nepal. And, as Gangdal writes, ‘Education … has helped reduce the asymmetry between the Sherpa people and us foreign climbers.’

Unlike other books about Himalayan mountaineering  this one focuses on the Rolwaling, the less visited and wilder valley in the shadow of Gauri Shankar, and protected by the goddess Tseringma. 

Noted Rolwaling Sherpas include Chhiring Dorje who made the heroic rescue on K2 in 2008, Dawa Yangzum, the first Nepali woman to summit all 14 eight-thousanders, Tamting Sherpa who has also climbed all 8,000m peaks, TGemba Tsheri who became the youngest person to climb Everst at age 16 in 2001.

Rolwaling also has a strong Norwegian connection, it is where Arne Næss who coined the term ‘deep ecology’, and mountaineer and eco-philosopher Sigmund Kvaløy did their research and exploration in 1971. 

There is one interesting tidbit with contemporary non-mountaineering relevance from Guilt & Glory: Næss and Kvaløy’s Rowaling research was bankrolled by Arne’s brother Erling Dekke Næss, a Norwegian shipping magnate.

But Rolwaling was a restricted area in those days because of Khampa activity, and the Norwegians approached Prince Gyanendra who granted them permission in return for setting up the Royal Nepal Shipping Corporation. Gyanendra became chair of that controversial company and Erling Næss was adviser.

Guilt & Glory is not just about mountaineering, and is sprinkled with anecdotes and encounters with everything from Maoists to yetis. It is written with compassion and a deep respect for Nepal and its people.