The first people to climb Mount Everest were Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, in 1953. But no one gets to the top of the world’s highest mountain without a team of unheralded helpers.
The last member of the Hillary-Norgay team, Kanchha Sherpa, died on Thursday, the Nepal Mountaineering Association said in a statement. He died at 92 at his home in Kapan, Nepal, the group’s president, Phur Gelje Sherpa, told The Associated Press.
Mr. Kanchha, whose name has also been spelled Kancha, was born in 1933 in Namche, Nepal. He had said that he did not know his exact birth date.
As a young man, he struggled to find work to support his family, at one point walking for five days in 1952 to Darjeeling, India, in search of a job.
Though he had no special interest in mountaineering, Mr. Kanchha later joined a team of 35 climbers and hundreds of porters supporting Mr. Hillary, a New Zealand explorer, and Mr. Norgay, his Sherpa guide, up Mount Everest.
It had been known for a century that Everest was the highest point in the world, but the idea of climbing to the top seemed fanciful for most of that time. Wind, cold and thin air compounded the climbing challenges.
A few had tried, notably George Mallory, who famously gave as his reason for his attempt, in 1924: “Because it is there.” His remains weren’t found until 1999.
Nonetheless, Mr. Hillary and Mr. Norgay were up for the challenge, aided by their vast team of helpers. Mr. Kanchha carried 60 pounds of gear, fixed ropes and scouted the trail for the team. Despite injury, cold, illness and hardship, “I got good work,” he told Climate Wire in 2011. “I got good clothing. It was good for me.”
Climbing without supplemental oxygen, he was one of a handful of team members to reach the final base camp, where they halted. Like many porters working on climbs, his role was not to reach the top. Mr. Hillary and Mr. Norgay went the rest of the way, to a summit 29,000 feet — five and a half miles — above sea level.
When the team got the news by radio that the two had defied the odds and become the first to reach the top, “We danced, hugged and kissed,” Mr. Kanchha told Everest Chronicle, Nepal’s state news agency. “It was a moment of pure joy.”
He continued to work on the mountain until 1970, when a fatal avalanche led his wife, Ang Lhakpa Sherpa, to urge him to stop. He began working for a trekking company, guiding visitors to safer, less elevated sites in the region.
Mr. Norgay died in 1986; Mr. Hillary in 2008.
Mr. Kanchha is survived by his wife, four sons, two daughters, eight grandchildren and one great-granddaughter, Everest Chronicle reported.
More recently, he expressed concern about the large numbers of people climbing Everest and the environmental damage they caused.
Still, as a mountain guide, he told Climate Wire: “If we stop the tourists to save the mountains, we don’t have anything to do. Just grow potatoes and eat and sit.”
Victor Mather, who has been a reporter and editor at The Times for 25 years, covers sports and breaking news.
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