Nepali soldiers in the British or Indian armies are renowned for their valour on the battlefield, but Dam Bahadur Pun’s claim to fame is being a gold-medalist springboard diver. For a Nepali soldier from the highlands of a landlocked country, it was unusual for Pun to take to swimming. But he took to diving like a fish to water.&nbsp; As a young cadet taking compulsory swimming lessons at the Indian Military Academy (IMA) in Dehradun, he became an expert and passionate diver.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231205111224_12d160069b030bdb97694cab244c32239daa7b7e92826cfaf3920cedc960720a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20231205111224_12d160069b030bdb97694cab244c32239daa7b7e92826cfaf3920cedc960720a" data-rendition-name="original" width="1423" height="2500" loading="lazy" alt="Captain Poon"> </figure>  Now retired at 65, ‘Captain Poon’ is an ex-soldier from the Indian Army’s Gorkha unit, a grandfather, a politician, a climate activist and owner of The Sunny Hotel Teahouse in Ghorepani. Born in Khilang where most young men aspired to be in the military, he travelled to India at age 14.&nbsp; Later, as a recruit in the engineering regiment at the IMA, he was required to swim. Despite never having swum before, Pun not only mastered freestyle but also excelled in diving. Talent spotters from the Indian national swimming team took notice, and he won his first medal at the Indian National Diving Championships in Jaipur.&nbsp; For the next five years, Pun won one tournament after another, collecting an impressive number of gold medals (right). He even participated in the 11th Commonwealth Games in Canada in 1978 as part of the Indian team, being the only known Nepali to have ever done so. He came 11th in the diving event.&nbsp; “I still remember being incredibly nervous at the Commonwealth Games, despite having competed in many tournaments,” recalls Pun. “But my pride and my guts urged me on.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231205111224_026036358018b65e666ac46e137919dadb54fa7ea2a90324f0d324c9156c83e2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20231205111224_026036358018b65e666ac46e137919dadb54fa7ea2a90324f0d324c9156c83e2" data-rendition-name="original" width="4992" height="3328" loading="lazy" alt="Nepali in commonwealth games"> <figcaption>Photo: Aïsha MacDougall</figcaption> </figure>  In 1982, he participated in the Asian Games in Delhi, and improved his ranking to 5th, becoming the Indian national record holder in diving. He went on to take part in the diving event at the 1986 Asian Games in Seoul. Pun became the national coach for the Indian Swimming Federation and a Senior Coach in the Indian Army. He finally returned to his native Nepal on retirement, and opened his lodge in the scenic trekking hub of Ghorepani.&nbsp; “We started small but over time we put in continuous effort to expand the hotel, our business grew and so did the local economy,” says Pun, who is called ‘Captain Poon’ because his hotel is located just below Poon Hill. The entire area started attracting more tourists and prospered after he established The Sunny Hotel Teahouse here, becoming a local hero in the process.&nbsp; Before the advent of mobile phones, Pun helped the isolated hilltop with connectivity by building a telecommunication mast so locals could get phone signals without having to trek for hours to make calls. During the insurgency, Pun mediated between the Royal Nepal Army and the Maoists to ensure that the NTC tower on the mountaintop would not be harmed in fighting.&nbsp; After the 2006 Comprehensive Peace Accord, he got into politics, and was elected chair of Annapurna Rural Municipality in the 2017 election. Throughout his five-year tenure, he did not take his salary, donating it instead to women’s charities and schools in the area.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231205111224_2089d12f-2c9f-4bf6-92fc-c99799bbc8d6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20231205111224_2089d12f-2c9f-4bf6-92fc-c99799bbc8d6" data-rendition-name="original" width="3328" height="4992" loading="lazy" alt="Captain Poon"> <figcaption>Captain Poon is now a grandfather. Photo: Aïsha MacDougall</figcaption> </figure>  Captain Poon has now set his sights on national politics. If elected, he wants to create a new trekking route to Dhaulagiri Base Camp, avoiding new motorable roads through unexplored villages, thus generating local jobs and lifting livelihoods. Pun is also a committed environmental activist and feels concerned about the impact of the climate crisis on the Himalaya. “The limitations of on-going conservation efforts are readily apparent, and that is very worrying,” he says. “We need immediate action to protect and conserve Nepal’s vulnerable landscape.”&nbsp; Despite forays into the military, sports, business and politics, Captain Poon has no plans to slow down and is always on the lookout for the next adventure. One thing that would take him full circle would be to get back to diving.&nbsp; Says Pun: “I want to build a diving school in Pokhara one day. The sport has great potential here, and we can raise a generation of talented Nepali divers.”&nbsp;

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Ex-soldier dives into business and politics

<figure><img width="800" height="457" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121140/636ce3a09c7e80680e096664jpeg.jpg" alt=""/><figcaption></figcaption></figure>It was a hazy December morning in 1971 at the strategic Chicken Neck frontline between India and what was then East Pakistan. Dhan Bahadur Rai had been watching a squadron of five Pakistan Air Force F-6s circle above his position.  Suddenly, one of the planes peeled off and dropped a bomb that landed close to his bunker. The sleek jet then looped back and started strafing the Indian Army positions.Dhan Bahadur was at his 7.62mm LMG (light machine gun) position, and took aim at the plane as it swooped low for another pass.“I fired at it in bursts, and I saw it pull away trailing smoke. Soon, it caught fire and crashed. We saw the pilot parachute out, and the plane was buried in a crater about 1km way,” Dhan Bahadur recalls.The pilot was captured, and became a prisoner of war. Within a week on 16 December 1971, Pakistan had surrendered, and Bangladesh was born.Read also: <a style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0.01em;" href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/atom-bomb-saved-his-life-covid-killed-him/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Atom bomb saved his life, Covid killed him</a>https://youtu.be/e3Z2SOYYVuoDhan Bahadur, now 77, grows cardamom in his ancestral village of Nundhiki in Sankhuwasabha high in the mountains of eastern Nepal where as a child he herded the family’s livestock.  At age 19 and never being in school, he walked across the border to Darjeeling with other boys from his village to be recruited into the Indian Army’s <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/diary-of-a-nepali-soldier-in-france/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Gorkha regiment</a>. He was shortlisted, and assigned a number for 11 months of military training.Dhan Bahadur is actually a Tamang, but the Indian Army recruitment officers presumed he was a Rai like other Nepalis who had joined up. So, when he went to Delhi with his wife and grandfather to receive the Vir Chakra medal (below) from Indian President V V Giri in 1972 his name was given as Dhan Bahadur Rai.    <figure><img width="468" height="319" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121140/636ce3a29c7e80680e096665png.png" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>Like many of his compatriots, Dhan Bahadur is a modest man, and underplays his role in downing the plane. When other units of the <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/gorkhas-on-the-frontline-between-india-and-china/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Indian Army</a> also claimed to have shot down the Pakistani plane, he did not press his role.In the end, it was the Pakistani pilot Flt Lt Wajid Ali Khan who as prisoner of war provided the evidence to prove that it was indeed Dhan Bahadur’s bunker from where the shots were fired that brought down the plane.This is considered one of the rare occasions in which a supersonic fighter jet has been brought down by small arms fire. The F-6 was the Chinese-made version of the Soviet Mig-19 fighter jet.Dhan Bahadur was with an advancing column of the 7/11 Gorkha Rifles which on 6 December, 1971 had entered 80km into what was then East Pakistan. The Chicken Neck is a narrow strip of Indian territory between Nepal and Bangladesh that connects India with its northeast. It was strategically important for the Indian military to defend this ‘Siliguri Corridor’. <figure><img width="465" height="426" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121140/636ce3a49c7e80680e096666jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>“We had dug a bunker, expecting a counter attack from Pakistan,” Dhan Bahadur recalls. “They did not retaliate, but they kept sending planes on reconnaissance.”A cheer went up from the Indian troops when the Pakistani plane went down. And till today, the 7/11 Gorkha Rifles of the Indian Army carries the cockpit of the F-6 and Dhan Bahadur’s Vir Chakra medal as souvenirs wherever it is deployed.Dhan Bahadur was congratulated by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and was promoted to Lance Corporal. He wanted to retire, but a decorated soldier was not allowed to. So he went on to serve in Jammu and Kashmir, Darjeeling and Ladakh.When he did retire in 1980, Dhan Bahadur returned to his village in Nepal where he lives to this day. He tried to change his name to Dhan Bahadur Rai so that his sons could also join the Indian or British armies, but he could not do it.Regardless, his seven sons and a daughter have gone on to build their careers and now have their own businesses in Dharan, that they have named after their famous father. father.Dhan Bahadur now uses a cane as walks in his <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/page/the-kingdom-of-cardamom-nepal" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">cardamom field</a>, and says he is enjoying retirement in the village where he was born. “I like village life. I grow cardamom, and I want to live here for the rest of my life,” he says.  <figure><img width="959" height="698" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221110121140/636ce3a69c7e80680e096667jpeg.jpg" alt=""><figcaption> </figcaption></figure>He does travel down to Dharan once in a while to check up on his sons and daughter, and to collect his pension which has grown from IRs 50 in 1980 to IRs48,000 today.Of the Nepali men who were awarded by the Indian government for their bravery, only Dhan Bahadur Tamang still lives in Nepal. Some stayed back in India and some have died.He is invited back to his battalion in India for events, and that is when for old times’ sake, he checks up on his medal, the wreckage of the plane he shot down and looks through framed photographs of that fateful day at the Chicken Neck that propelled him to fame.

He shot down a fighter, then shot to fame

Fenerbahçe Beko won the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague finals in Abu Dhabi, held 23-25 May, defeating Monaco 81-70 in the final. Olympiacos, who defeated Panathinaikos 97-93, finished the series in third place. The Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the final match, Nigel Hayes-Davis from Fenerbahçe Beko, received a prize of 1,000,000 Miles&amp;Smiles from Turkish Airlines’ Chief Commercial Officer Ahmet Olmuştur. The carrier has been the title sponsor of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague, a top tier tournament, since 2010.

Turkish Basketball

While Nepal was hosting the Sagarmatha Sambaad international climate conference in Kathmandu this month, on Mt Everest it was pretty much business as usual.&nbsp; The signs of climate breakdown are all there: a river now runs through Base Camp in summer, the Khumbu Icefall is more unstable, and there are more &nbsp;frequent avalanches. When expeditions arrived in March, the mountains were bare: it had not snowed since September, but then blizzards dumped unseasonal snow in May. And despite climate worries, such is the pull of Himalayan mountaineering that the Everest Industry showed no signs of slowdown. More than 600 international climbers and their Nepali guides had made it to the summit of the world’s highest mountain. At one point there were an estimated 2,000 people in the tent city on the Khumbu Glacier. All the ropes and ladders on the Icefall came down on Thursday, marking the official end of the spring climbing season, and just in time to avoid a monsoon cyclone approaching from the Bay of Bengal. It has been an action-packed season. One factor could be that Everest fees will go up from September: each foreign climber needs to pay a $15,000 royalty, up from the present $11,000. The cost for a Nepali climber on the South Col route will also go up: from Rs75,000 to Rs150,000.&nbsp; The fee to climb Everest in autumn is $7,500 (up from $5,500), but most climbers still prefer spring. Winter permit fee (December-February) is only $3,750 per person and the mountain is now also open for monsoon (June-August) climbs, when the fee is ever lower at $2,750. The revised rule also makes it mandatory for every two climbers on an 8,000m peak to hire one Nepali mountain guide.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025053004050_67f856fe52714e4bdcf21ae7d45c6f18c82117b9d0a5f73ed1efa04c96de1046.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2025053004050_67f856fe52714e4bdcf21ae7d45c6f18c82117b9d0a5f73ed1efa04c96de1046" data-rendition-name="original" width="931" height="732" loading="lazy" alt="The Everest Industry graph 1"> </figure>  In addition, climbers also have to pay for porters and guides, equipment, Base Camp costs, Ice Fall and fixed rope team fees, so climbing Everest does not come cheap. But such is the draw of climbing the world’s highest peak that some say the increased fees will not diminish the crowds next year. The government has tried to spread expeditions out to other seasons and other 8,000ers, but with not much success. Earlier this year, Nepal unilaterally increased the number of 8,000m peaks to 14 by adding six more sub-summits to broaden the choice for climbers. Added were: Yalung Kang (8,505m), Yalung Kang West (8,077m) &nbsp;Kangchenjunga Central (8,473m), Kangchenjunga South (8,476m), Lhotse Middle (8,410m) and Lhotse Shar (8,400m).&nbsp; The announcement could go against the accepted topographic criteria that a stand alone peak has to be at least 300m higher than an adjoining prominence, and at more than 3km isolation from it. The UIAA (Union Internationale des Associations d'Alpinisme) still recognises only 14 mountains as eight-thousanders, and only eight of those are in Nepal, or on the border with China. Nepal’s revised mountaineering regulations also increased the insurance coverage of high-altitude workers to protect porters and high altitude guides who usually take more risks on the mountains. Rescue teams and clean-up campaigners to collect trash and remove bodies of dead climbers up to Camp IV of Mt Everest do not need permits.&nbsp; The Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee is now using drones to fly down trash in 20kg sacks. Each climber is also required to bring down at least 6kg of waste and not just their own, but this rule is erratically enforced. With five fatalities on Everest and Lhotse, Spring 2025 had a historically low death toll. Another five climbers died on Annapurna, Kangchenjunga and Makalu.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025053004050_38681de22f0fefb6faa12b01755566d09c5064d0ff84e12ccc7b5d68ea9ba38a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2025053004050_38681de22f0fefb6faa12b01755566d09c5064d0ff84e12ccc7b5d68ea9ba38a" data-rendition-name="original" width="665" height="740" loading="lazy" alt="The Everest industry graph 2"> </figure>  Journalist Ben Ayers who ran the Everest Live social media channel from Everest Base Camp with daily updates credited the low death rate to dramatic rescues of climbers from the ‘Death Zone’ by their Nepali guides and longline helievacs — the visuals all uploaded on YouTube.&nbsp; “Ironically, this perception of safety is bringing more and more inexperienced climbers to the mountain, and they need more rescues,” Ayers said in one of his dispatches.&nbsp; American expedition chronicler and summiteer Alan Arnette suspects there is a lot of under-reporting given that the jet stream and storms were lashing Everest even till late in the season. He told us: “I heard a lot about frostbite and rescues that were not made public. It’s become practically impossible to cover the details on Everest. All the teams report nice news, and they don’t talk about bad stuff to avoid hurting businesses.” Although trash on Nepal’s mountains makes headlines, what does not receive as much attention is the climate impact of so many expeditions. The Sagarmatha Sambaad conference sidestepped this issue, which is ironic given that the impact of climate breakdown is most evident on Himalayan peaks and their glaciers.&nbsp; <h2>Need for Speed</h2> The big stories this year have been about speed-running from their home cities to the top of Everest. Ukrainian entrepreneur Andrew Ushakov flew out of JFK on 15 May at 10:15AM Nepal time, and was on the summit 3 days, 23 hours, and 7 minutes later on 19 May at 9:22AM.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250601080640_1c5cc6fc991307861768f07037ed9d30930fb20f35dbb57dc31c9a92a9e1a885.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20250601080640_1c5cc6fc991307861768f07037ed9d30930fb20f35dbb57dc31c9a92a9e1a885" data-rendition-name="original" width="1440" height="1800" loading="lazy" alt="The Everest Industry"> <figcaption>Andrew Ushakov at the summt. Photo: ELITE EXPED</figcaption> </figure>  “I could never find the time for the traditional 40-50 days of acclimatisation,” Ushakov explained matter-of-factly. His ‘Everest Sea-to-Summit’ climb was possible because he spent 400 hours in hypoxic sleep tents over the past four years in New York. However, Ushakov did use ropes already fixed, hired four Nepali guides, helicoptered to Base Camp, and used much more oxygen than an average climber. And after the climb, Ushakov was arrested at Kathmandu airport for being in possession of $20,000 of undeclared cash and spent a night in jail and fined $60,000.&nbsp; The other speedsters were Garth Miller, Alastair Cairns, Anthony Stazicker, and Kev Godlington, all former British Army commandos. They left London and summited five days later on 21 May, and flew right back. They also used hypoxic tents to simulate the thin air high on Everest.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250601080644_90c8dd5cc07b4b43f2989b1dc0c0650ab80f10ebb06680c25a6909c519957bd8.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20250601080644_90c8dd5cc07b4b43f2989b1dc0c0650ab80f10ebb06680c25a6909c519957bd8" data-rendition-name="original" width="810" height="668" loading="lazy" alt="The Everest Industry "> <figcaption>All four members of the Furtenbach team at the summit. Photo: Sandro Gromen-Hayes</figcaption> </figure>  But more controversial was their use of xenon gas therapy in a German hospital to ramp up the production of oxygen-carrying haemoglobins in their blood. Xenon is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency for being performance enhancing in sports. Expedition leader Lukas Furtenbach said this rule does not apply to mountaineering, as it is not a regulated sport like swimming. Nepal has no rules about xenon, but the Department of Tourism said it was launching an ‘investigation’ to decide on future policy since it is difficult to ban xenon, but allow oxygen. The controversy has also divided the mountaineering community, with some climbers saying they just want to maximise their chances of survival. Spending less time on the mountain could make climbing safer by reducing avalanche risk. It would also mean less trash on the mountains, but it would reduce the income of Nepal’s expedition industry. It is also unclear how much of the success was due to xenon therapy and whether the ex-special forces were already in good physical shape.&nbsp; The need for speed hides the fact that climbing in the Himalaya is dangerous business, and climbers cannot sprint to the top just by huffing xenon. But ultra-fast climbs could be charged more, and the revenue generated can be used to establish state-of-the-art rescue operations, and increase pay and insurance for guides. Two other speed chasers this season were Swiss-Ecuadorian Karl Egloff and American Tyler Andrews, both on Everest without oxygen. Andrews choppered to Base Camp to catch a weather window, but turned back from 8,500m due to high winds. Heavy snow and wind also forced Egloff to descend from 7,000m. Slow and steady climbers like Anja Blacha from Germany did make it to the summit without oxygen, while Kami Rita Sherpa broke his own record with his 31st Everest summit as he led a 26-strong Indian Army group. There were 468 permits issued for foreign climbers from 48 expeditions to Everest this spring. Nepal’s other eight-thousanders together had only 17 expeditions. Nepal has more than 1,000 peaks above 6,000m, and has opened only 476 of them for climbing.&nbsp;

The Everest Industry

While Nepal marked <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/mt-everest-pvt-ltd">Mt Everest</a> Day on 29 May, on the other side of the planet in the US state of Colorado dozens of Nepalis who have climbed the world’s highest peak multiple times were busy working as chefs and Uber drivers. Among them is Nima Doma Sherpa, who climbed Mt Everest in 2019 after her husband Tshering Wangchu was among 16 crushed by an avalanche on <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/on-thin-ice-in-the-khumbu">the Khumbu Icefall</a> five years earlier. A large serac broke off the West Shoulder of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-everest-industry">Mt Everest </a>and fell directly on a group of <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/more-porters-sick-on-everest-trail">porters and guides</a> making their way up the Icefall at 5,800m. Their bodies were flown by helicopter to Khumjung where Tshering Wangchu was born. He was excited about climbing Mt Everest for the first time.&nbsp; In Khumjung, Nima Doma felt like her own life had also ended. This was the kind of news Sherpa wives, mothers and sisters dreaded every <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/peak-climbing-season-2025-s4abrxny">mountaineering season</a>. She stayed home for more than two years grieving, but ultimately gathered up all her emotional strength to take care of her 6-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter. Nima had grown up in Khumjung hearing <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/stories-of-nepal-s-summiteers">tales of adventure on the mountains </a>from their father, Ang Chubi Sherpa who had climbed Everest in 1993. He used to bring her and her sisters and brother European chocolates after every expedition, and used to tell them that the chocolate bars grew on the mountains. “It was only after we got older did we realise that he told us that chocolates grew in the mountains so we would not worry about him putting himself in harm's way,” Nima Doma recalled with a faraway look at her home in Boulder this week. Nima went to the school that <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/commemorating-edmund-hillary-in-nepal,4145">Edmund Hillary</a> opened in Khumjung till Grade 8, and then dropped out to help in the kitchen and <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/when-yaks-go-so-does-culture">tend yaks</a>. She was married off to Tshering Wangchu, who was also a high altitude guide. When Tshering went on expeditions, Nima also started working as a porter from Namche to Base Camp. It was perhaps her father’s tales of mountains of chocolates that had always attracted her to <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/knowing-our-mountains-43v4iyvo">the peaks</a>. After her husband was killed ten years ago this month, being a widow with children was not easy for Nima Doma. But she was not alone: there were at least 200 single mothers in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/khumbu-since-1950-jaww4qn0">the Khumbu</a>, and 20 of them just in Khumjung whose husbands had been killed in <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/tragic-start-to-himalayan-spring-nepal,3695">mountaineering accidents</a>. Some were not even 20 years old, and had children growing up without fathers. But there were also women in the 50s whose husbands had been killed in the 1980s. Nima found sponsors for her children’s education, and moved to Kathmandu. In the capital, Sherpa widows used to meet to help each other. Some of them had joined the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA) training for rock and ice climbing. “I decided that it was no use sitting home and crying anymore, after meeting other single mothers I felt less alone,” remembers Nima, who joined the Juniper Foundation and enrolled in an NMA training camp in Manang. There she climbed Chulu East (6,584m) and met Furadiki Sherpa, whose rope-fixing husband had also been <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/on-mt-everest-s-70th-records-and-fatalities">killed on Everest</a> in 2013. They set themselves the goal of climbing Everest one day, and started a fund-raising drive.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250530090544_621be0724b9182c8e3594b2c562a71ec32ac01d985a71d0cf31646de9d51e15a.png" data-media-id="editor_12" data-image-id="20250530090544_621be0724b9182c8e3594b2c562a71ec32ac01d985a71d0cf31646de9d51e15a" data-rendition-name="original" width="2678" height="1274" loading="lazy" alt="Everest summiteers find new life in the US"> </figure>  “We decided we had to overcome society’s stigma of <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/nation/widows-personal-happiness-comes-last-in-face-of-social-financial-hardships,1855">widowhood</a> and prove that <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/remembering-junko-tabei">women could also climb mountains</a>,” Nima said, adding that she was inspired by Nepal’s first woman Everest summiteer Pasang Lhamu Sherpa, who died during her descent in 1993. Nima Doma and Furdiki climbed the technically-difficult Ama Dablam (6,812m) and then arrived at Everest Base Camp in April 2019 as part of their Two Widows Expedition with the motto, ‘So Can We’. While climbing up the Icefall Nima passed the spot where her husband had been killed. It was a jumble of constantly-shifting ice blocks bigger than houses. She closed her eyes and said a prayer. “I remember thinking, this is so difficult and dangerous. This is what my husband had to do to support our family,” Nima Doma said. “I was determined to fulfil my husband’s dream of climbing Chomolungma, and to prove to ourselves that we two women could do it.” It was 23 May 2019 when <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/world/two-sherpa-widows-scale-everest-and-smash-stigma-idUSKCN1SU0MV/" target="_blank">Nima and Furdiki stepped on the summit</a> and looked over into Tibet, and down at Tengboche Monastery to the south.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250530090544_6b822582b5d88ba5e972db084f184690b40653c6efd9901b2dd082ffba2a263b.png" data-media-id="editor_16" data-image-id="20250530090544_6b822582b5d88ba5e972db084f184690b40653c6efd9901b2dd082ffba2a263b" data-rendition-name="original" width="2700" height="1522" loading="lazy" alt="Everest summiteers find new life in the US"> </figure>  Nima Doma hugged Furdiki, took off her mask and wept. But for the first time in five years, it was not from grief but relief — relief for being free of all the sadness and sacrifices and for fulfilling her husband’s dream. They had found <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/life-after-death">life after death</a>. “I felt this immense joy to be on top of the world, it was indescribable,” Nima Doma said, “I have wept only twice in my life. Once when my husband died, and once there on top of Everest.” The tears had frozen on Nima Doma’s cheeks, as she and Furdiki headed back down the mountain.

Everest summiteers find new life in the US

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