Daniel Nelson

After 16 people were killed in a catastrophic avalanche on Everest in 2014 and Sherpas decided that expeditions should be temporarily halted, a thwarted climber commented: “We are being held captive by terrorists – that’s how I look at it – and we in the US understand that, after 9/11.”

You can only hope he regrets word spoken in the heat of the moment, but such an attitude partly explains why two years before the catastrophe relations between some climbers and Sherpas had deteriorated to the point where a scuffle (“the Everest brawl”) broke out.

The brilliant documentary, Sherpa, originally set out to chronicle this partial breakdown of trust but was overtaken by the avalanche. The tragedy gives the film-makers a razor-sharp focus.

As soon as mountain rescuers arrive there is a clash over whether they or Westerners should be on the first helicopter missions. And when the living and dead have been airlifted – hanging limply from the end of lengthy helicopter winches – the Sherpas’ shock, fears, grievances and respect for the dead erupt.

A Base Camp workers’ meeting demands an end to the eight-week climbing season, followed by demands for compensation and better conditions. The latter is directed at the government, which they feel is taking a huge cut from mountaineering revenues while they, who sustain the entire industry, receive a tiny share.

The camera captures this confrontation, including the pressured arrival of an unconvincing government minister and then the tense stand-off as tour companies and Sherpas decide whether to continue or cancel.

Would-be climbers who have paid $75,000 for the ascent want to get on with the ascent. Shocked Sherpas feel it would be wrong so soon after the deaths. (“The Sherpas had choice. They chose respect for themselves and the mountain over money.”)

Faced with angry clients, expedition organisers tell them that a handful of troublemakers are threatening to break the legs of fellow Sherpas who undertake the climb. One describes the situation as “mob rule”. None of the Sherpas interviewed has heard of this threat. Has it been concocted by the expedition organisers to enable them to call off the climbing season?

Not all the climbers are as dogmatic as the guy seeing terrorism at work. But many do not seem to realise how much effort the Sherpas put in to make the climbs possible. The riskiest part of the ascent and descent is a dangerously unstable icefield: the climbers cross Khumbu Icefall twice, one up, once down. Each Sherpa crosses it about 20 times for each expedition, carrying backbending burdens of heavy equipment before descending to collect another load. Each crossing is potentially fatal and some of the loads are creature comforts rather than bare essentials.

Some climbers do not even know the Sherpas are a community, rather than a word for a mountain labourer.

Misconceptions, ignorance and prejudice go back to the first ascent in 1953 (Sherpas don’t talk about “conquering”

Sherpa

Sherpa

Image by Sherpa

 because it is a place of great spirituality). The two white men, Edmund Hillary and John Hunt, were awarded knighthoods for getting to the top of the world: the Sherpa, Tenzing Norgay, received a second-class medal.

As Everest has expanded into a $360 million-a-year business, complete with “traffic jams” of climbers, more Sherpas have come into the industry, and today most are more educated than their predecessors (“Sherpas now think, ‘You know what, I’m as good as you’,” says an Australian mountaineering writer.)

The film doesn’t make judgements on the disputes but its focus is firmly on the Sherpas, as human beings with views and feelings and not mere hod-carriers. We see some of the families, including that of Phurba Tashi, a 21-time summiteer, whose wife wishes he would stop risking his life, and whose wife wonders “What’s the point of everyone going to the mountain?” – a point echoed by Tenzing Norgay’s son: “My father said he climbed so we don’t have to.”

After the avalanche, well after the departure of the flaccid minister, the government does finally act, raising compensation and improving conditions, thereby proving the accuracy of a comment by one of those interviewed in the film: "This day is so sad. If this doesn't change things, nothing will."

Even tragedy can have positive effects. In a sad coda to this superb film, however, we are reminded that the following year the climbing season was again cancelled after 22 people were killed in earthquake avalanches, one of which crashed into the South Base camp and part of the Khumbu icefall.

 

 

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