Tharkay - Sherpa - the memoir of ang tharkay

SHERPA

SHERPA

THE MEMOIR OF ANG THARKAY

BY ANG THARKAY

WITH BASIL P. NORTON

Foreword by

TASHI SHERPA

Afterword by

DAWA SHERPA

Translated from the French by

CORINNE MCKAY

LEGENDS AND LORE SERIES

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Original French-language edition Mmoires dun Sherpa published by Amiot-Dumont

1954 by Le Livre Contemporain, Amiot-Dumont

English-language translation 2016 Corinne McKay

Foreword 2016 by Tashi Sherpa

Afterword 2016 by Dawa Sherpa

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

19 18 17 161 2 3 4 5

Copy editor: Chris Dodge

Layout: Jen Grable

Series design: Karen Schober

Cartographer: Marge Mueller, Gray Mouse Graphics

Cover photograph: Ang Tharkay on Mount Everest Expedition, 1935 Royal Geographical Society

Frontispiece: Ang Tharkay on Mount Everest Reconnaissance Expedition, 1951 Royal

Geographical Society

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Tharkay, Ang, 1907-1981. | Norton, Basil P.

Title: Sherpa : the memoir of Ang Tharkay / by Ang Tharkay, with Basil P. Norton ; foreword by Tashi Sherpa ; afterword by Dawa Sherpa ; translated from the French by Corinne McKay.

Other titles: Memoires dun Sherpa. English

Description: Seattle, WA : Mountaineers Books, [2016] | Series: Legends and Lore | Original French-language edition Memoires dun Sherpa published by Amiot-Dumont ?1954 by Le Livre Contemporain, Amiot-DumontT.p. verso.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015034050| ISBN 9781594859977 (trade paper) | ISBN 9781594859984 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Tharkay, Ang, 1907-1981. | Mountaineering guides (Persons)Himalaya MountainsBiography. | MountaineeringHimalaya MountainsHistory.

Classification: LCC GV199.92.T5 A32513 2016 | DDC 796.552092-dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015034050

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Printed on recycled paper

ISBN (paperback): 978-1-59485-997-7

ISBN (ebook): 978-1-59485-998-4

CONTENTS

List of Maps

MAP KEY

FOREWORD: SIRDAR NONPAREIL

MY LASTING IMAGE OF AGU (Uncle) Tharkay focuses on his broad grinsparkling and endearingand his dense wave of dark hair. Agu Tharkay radiated warmth, seemed impervious to envy, and instantly made one feel safe in his presence. I cant remember him ever not smiling.

Even as an eight-year-old I knew, from the banter among us cousins, of his special status. This status was burnished by our hero worship and reinforced by how my other uncles and the mikarus (foreigners) deferred to him as a person and as a mountaineer. The Sherpas affectionately accorded him a pedestal, as only cohorts who have prevailed through the same gauntlet of ice and snow would do. We reveled in his prowess as a climber, respected his wisdom as a sirdar, and marveled at how the legendary European climbers praised the great-hearted Ang Tharkay in their own epic tales. He was an equal in an exclusive club with Shipton, Tilman, Herzog, Hillary, and of course Tenzing Norgay. Indias most famous climber, M. S. Kohli, honored him as the king amongst the Sherpas. He was the Sherpa before Tenzing became the beacon of hope in a world still recovering from the ravages of war.

Himalayan mountaineering in the early thirties was fraught with peril and very little reward. Beside the unpredictable avalanches and crevasses that killed and maimed many, frostbite was the common enemy. But that did not prevent climbers from reaching 28,000 feet, which at that time was the highest point any human had reached. Expedition members went through an arduous two-month trek through the forbidding Tibetan Plateau, and then up the difficult North Col, often without supplemental oxygen and with equipment that would be considered suicidal today.

Tibet was then closed and shrouded in mystery for Westerners, and little was known to them about its neighbor, Nepal. The lure of Shangri-La, of mysterious, hidden peaks and valleys, was great, and a race began between Europes elite explorers which would continue for more than two decades. That era of swashbuckling mountaineering in the twenties and thirties coincided with the discovery of the Sherpa as a trustworthy, hardy companion on the treacherous slopes of the Karakoram and the Himalayas. The legend of the Sherpa as indefatigable and indispensable on the mountains was passed by word of mouth and written up in copious field reports by adventurers seeking discoveries and first summits, some for themselves, and others for the glory of waning empires.

History tells us that the first Sherpas came from Tibet and settled in the isolated high reaches of Nepals mountains. Life offered few choices. A young man either became a yak herder for the family or joined the monkhood. The land yielded little, so many looked far beyond the crags and rivers of the Khumbu valley in search of a better future. Darjeeling, a resort town in British India, teeming with itinerant traders, soldiers, and civil servants seeking recreation, was the hub for many such youths who sought work and a steady income. Mountaineering seemed to be a natural choice for those who had lived their whole lives in the sacred shadow of a towering peak they called Chomolungma.

The early Sherpas never sought fame. They ventured into perilous zones of hitherto unexplored ranges, ate food that was strange to them, and met and worked with strangers who would become lifelong admirers of the Sherpas bravery, grit, and loyalty. They rallied back to their worried families, just happy to be alive and sometimes satisfied knowing that their best efforts had helped the sahibs in the success of an expedition. They risked their lives for a few rupees and the promise of a job for another season. That is what Ang Tharkay and his friends did in the early years.