Annapurna I

Dead and gone. Why only are single deaths of Sherpa climbers in the Himalayas swept under the carpet so quickly? Almost as if it was just a work accident. According to the motto: It’s sad, but unfortunately it sometimes happens. The most recent example was the accident on the eight-thousander Annapurna four weeks ago. In the days that followed, many obits of the 36-year-old Finn Samuli Mansikka were published. For sure, he had deserved each of them. Samuli was not only an excellent climber – Annapurna was his tenth eight-thousander, eight of which he climbed without bottled oxygen – but, according to all reports of his mates, a cool guy, always up for fun or ready for party. However, we learned next to nothing about the other climber who died. It was 35-year-old Pemba Sherpa, was said in a few reports. Allegedly he was born near the eight-thousander Makalu and was called “Technical Pemba” due to his technical climbing skills. About what Pemba had previously done as a mountaineer, the information diverged widely. I was not content with this confusion.

Common name

The research proved difficult. In expedition reports Sherpas are often passed over in total silence. Not uncommonly their names are missing completely, almost as if they were only numbers, not flesh and blood people. Is it because the authors are embarrassed about having used the support of Sherpas? Or is it due to the fact that Sherpa names are confusingly similar or quite frequently identical? In Nepal many Sherpas bear the Tibetan name “Pemba”. Actually it only means that this man first saw the light of day on a Saturday.

Billi Bierling

I made a request to the Kathmandu based expedition operator Dreamers Destination for whom Pemba Sherpa had worked – however, as it turned out later, for the first time. My questions remained unanswered as well as those to the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA). Fortunately I could ask Billi Bierling for assistance, a German mountaineer and journalist, living in Kathmandu. She is working for the Himalayan Database, the chronicle of the legendary American Elizabeth Hawley. Thus she has always a finger on the pulse of mountaineering in the Himalayas. At first Billi was groping in the dark too. Almost everyone she asked for the Sherpa who had died on Annapurna seemed to mean another Pemba. The information about his age, his origins and achievements as a high altitude mountaineer diverged topsy-turvy. The data that she received didn’t fit to any Pemba Sherpa in the Himalayan Database.

Four times on top of Everest

Billi was sticking to her guns. After about two weeks, she succeeded in lifting the fog. To her research, Pemba Sherpa who died on Annapurna is listed in the archive of Miss Hawley as Pema Tshering. He was born on 16 June 1970 at upper Walung in the Makalu-Barun National Park. Until 2014, Pem(b)a made twelve ascents to the summits of eight-thousanders: Four times Mount Everest (in 2003, 2004, 2007 and 2013), three times Dhaulagiri (in 2005, 2009, 2012), twice Kangchenjunga (in 2009, 2011), twice Annapurna (in 2010, 2012) and once Lhotse in (2008).

With Oh Eun-Sun and Cleo Weidlich

It is striking that he often accompanied female climbers to the summits of eight-thousanders: three times each the South Korean Oh Eun-Sun and the US-Brazilian Cleo Weidlich. In 2010 “Miss Oh” war the first woman to complete her 8,000er collection, though her success on Kangchenjunga in 2009 is listed in the Himalayan Database as “disputed” to this day. Unlike another member of her five-strong Sherpa team, Pemba stated that Oh Eun-Sun and he had really reached the top of the third highest mountain in the world. A year later, Pemba also joined the Korean on her way up to the summit of Annapurna, her last eight-thousander. In 2014, he accompanied Cleo Weidlich, with whom he had previously reached the summits of Annapurna, Dhaulagiri and Kangchenjunga, in her attempt on Lhotse. The expedition made headlines around the world because Cleo (like the Chinese Wang Jing) flow to the high camp above the Khumbu Icefall by helicopter.

Amateurish? Not hardly!

Pemba’s 13th eight-thousander ascent, his third on Annapurna, was fatal for him. We will probably never know what exactly happened to him and Samuli Mansikka during the descent. Their bodies were discovered in a crevasse at 7,200 meters. It seems to me too hasty to accuse the Sherpa and the Finn of “amateurish behavior” and “carelessness”, as an expedition member did after the accident. Like Samuli, Pemba was a very experienced high altitude mountaineer, anything but an amateur. Pem(b)a Tshering Sherpa was 44 years old. He leaves behind a wife and a four-year-old daughter.

Update: It looks as if we were wrong. Mingma Sherpa, owner of Dreamers Destination, told me the Sherpa who died on Annapurna was Pemba Sherpa from Sankhuwasava: “He has climbed Annapurna in 2009,2010,2012 and 2015, Kangchenjunga from India, Dhaulagiri in 2012, Makalu in 2011. He was on K2 in 2009 and 2014. I met him on K2 last year and I was surprised by his work because he alone made all the way from Camp 2 to Camp 4 on the Senchen Route. He was a really experienced and technical climber so named technical Pemba.”

Edurne Pasaban

In sports the second is often seen as the first looser. On May 17,2010 Edurne Pasaban from Spain finished the climbing of all fourteen 8000ers. But up to now it’s not clear whether she was the first or second woman who achieved this. Oh Eun-Sun completed the 8000ers three weeks earlier, but it remains disputed, whether the Korean really reached the summit of Kangchenjunga. When I talked to Edurne at the trade fair ISPO in Munich, I felt that the 39 years old climber is in harmony with the world around her, with the mountains and herself:

Edurne, you completed the fourteen 8000ers in 2010. Have you been in the Himalayas since then?

I came back to Everest in 2011. Everest was my first 8000er in 2001, I used (supplementary) oxygen for the summit. So after I had finished all 8000ers I wanted to try Everest without oxygen. But we didn’t make the summit. 

Until now there have been debates whether Oh Eun-Sun really reached the summit of Kangchenjunga or not. Have these discussions been difficult for you or have they left you cold? 

I think this kind of dispute is neither good for me nor for Miss Oh nor for all alpinists. It’s no good image for climbers. It was a difficult situation that I could do nothing. The Korean Alpine Federation said that she didn’t climb Kangchenjunga, so the debate began and it was a very crazy moment for me. 

Edurne Pasaban: The dispute about Miss Oh

In this case not Miss Oh, but you would be the first woman who climbed all 8000-meter-peaks. Do you feel you are the first or the second? 

It was the big project, the big challenge of my life to finish all 8000-meter-peaks some day. It’s true that it’s nice to be the first one if you make something, but it’s not the most important, there are many more things. I spent a lot of time in this one. It was one part of my life, but now I’m in another period. 

Did you fall into a deep hole after you had reached your target? 

I thought: What can I do now? I had spent a big part of my life on expeditions. When you make one, you already make plans for another one. I saw a big hole in front of me. But when I took care of it, I said: First I need time for me. Now I have spent two years. I continued climbing in the Alps or elsewhere. I never thought that I could live one day without 8000ers, but now I can. Life continues. 

Edurne Pasaban: Life without 8000ers

Is it a kind of new freedom? 

Yes. But when you are at the end of something, you don’t see this freedom very clear. You need time to see that you can make something more – like going to the Pyrenees with my friends or to the Alps for ten days climbing or skiing. I didn´t have this time before, now I have it. 

Have the 8000ers lost the fascination for you? 

No. They are still important. I have spent nice years of my life there. If now a good friend asks me ‘Edurne, do you want to come with me to an 8000er?’, I will go. Because I like the area in the basecamp and I like expeditions.

Next May the 60th anniversary of the first ascent of Mount Everest will be celebrated. How do you think now about the highest mountain on earth?

Everest is a special mountain, it’s the highest, the top of the world. And everybody, who starts climbing in the Himalayas or elsewhere, has the goal to climb Everest at least once in his life. When I made it in 2001 I thought before that I would cry on the summit or would be crazy. But it was not like that. I felt fear, took a picture and went back. I lost a little bit there. Everest is nice and the highest, but it’s not a fantastic place. Everest has changed a lot during the last years. It’s true that it’s a commercial mountain in spring, on the normal route from the south and the north side. But if you want to go to Everest without anybody you can do so: In winter or on another route. There are more than 15 routes where nobody is climbing. We speak a lot about the many people on Everest. But there is another Everest that you can find if you want to.

Would it be attractive for yourself to do it?

Only two percent of the people on Everest are without oxygen. When I started to climb 8000ers I checked it out and said: Only a few are without O2. So I also used oxygen in 2001. But after all 8000ers I know that you can go to Everest without oxygen, if you train a lot. Now I know my body, how I feel in high altitude. So I have this inside me that maybe one day I will like to come back to Everest without oxygen.

Edurne Pasaban: Everest without oxygen

What do you wish Mount Everest for the future?

The last news from Everest were not good news. It looks like Everest is a show, like a Disneyworld. But it’s not like that. So I think the best present we can give Everest is to have big respect for him. Maybe Mount Everest is a commercial thing, but it’s a mountain, the highest, and we must respect him.

P.S. You can hear the statements of Edurne concerning the 60th anniversary on the pinboards on the right side of the blog.