NEPAL: Battle of the Sherpas

Among the mountain climbers who swarm into Nepal each year to see what heights they may surmount, there is one rule of thumb about the hiring of native porters. For climbs under 18,000 ft., the mountaineers usually pick their men from among the 5,000 Sherpa families living in the Nepalese area of Solo Khumbu. But for high-altitude work, the most able Sherpas are those who live in Darjeeling, across the border in India. Most of these men come from families who emigrated from Nepal in 1921 and got their rugged training in the Indian and Tibetan Himalayas before Nepal was opened to expeditions. Most famous of them all: Tenzing Norgay, who climbed to the top of Mount Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary.

In 1955, when Tenzing paid a visit to his home town in Solo Khumbu, his old neighbors accused him of turning Indian and making scads of money at the expense of Nepal. To protect himself and his elite colleagues, Tenzing set up a Solo Khumbu branch of the Nepal Climbers’ Association, a union of Sherpas he heads. In retaliation, the Nepalese Sherpas started a rival union, put a blunt demand before the Nepal government that it outlaw all such foreigners as Tenzing from plying their trade in the country. But the last word would probably come from expedition leaders themselves. Said Australia’s Peter Byrne, who has just arrived in Katmandu with eight Darjeeling Sherpas to help him seek the Abominable Snowman: “An expedition which spends a huge amount of money must have the right of choosing who it takes with it.”