True hero

Apa Sherpa, one of the world’s most revered mountaineer and 21-times Everest conqueror, has declared at the age of 51 that he will now retire from climbing Mt Everest. His last stunning conquest of the highest peak in the world was on May 11 when he bettered his own record as he scaled on top of Sagarmatha. Born in Thame village in the Everest region of Nepal, Apa’s journey to become a world climber began as a mere guide. Thanks to the rugged terrain and hardship of living in the mountains, a star in him was born in his early childhood. He relentlessly pursued climbing as a career even after unsuccessful attempts to scale the Everest three times as a teenager. But hard work and perseverance paid off as Apa has now become the best-known Sherpa climber in the world after the legendary Tenzing Norgay.



On Sunday, Apa made public his decision not to climb the Everest beyond the base camps, however he stated that he will fully support the Eco Everest Expedition and its initiatives for the protection of mountain environment. In this way, he wishes to keep himself close to the Himalayas, which he considers his “life-line.” Apa, whose extraordinary career started in 1990, is well-known in the mountaineering community as a sincere, honest and humble man. It is in fact this humbleness and his innocent personality that has won him applause at home and abroad. Besides being a tough climber, he is a compassionate human being. His true success lies in his simplicity and his undying love for the Himalayas.



Apa is currently world famous not only as a climber but as a global ambassador in the fight against climate change. Since the last four years, Apa traveled the world over, especially in Europe, spreading the message of the need to stop climate change. Hailed wherever he went, he attracted thousands of people and spoke with conviction on the need to save our great Himalayas from melting. He believes in this cause and has become one of the most heard voices in the global campaign on climate change. But his actual commitment to save the Himalayas was born many years ago when a strong flooding wiped out his entire village. He was just a boy then but he has said that it was that incident which motivated him to fight for the cause of the Himalayas and the people living there.



Each year for the last five, Apa thus came to Nepal from the US, where he resides at present. He interacted with his village community, environmentalists, government officials and mountaineers on issues ranging from promotion of mountaineering sector to the cleaning drives in the base camps to the need to stop commercialization of the Himalayas. He demonstrated such extraordinary strength that his beliefs became first a national and then an international campaign to save the Himalayas. We hail the achievement of this person par excellence and congratulate him on his extraordinary career.

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