Pasang Lhamu Sherpa

Pasang Lhamu Sherpa was born in the Solukhumbu district of Nepal, in the foothills below Everest, into a family of climbers and porters. Her father had worked on expeditions, and she grew up among the men who carried loads for foreigners up the mountain. Sherpa women were expected to run the home and the tea houses; almost none were given the chance to climb high.

She married Sonam Sherpa, who ran a trekking business, and began working on expeditions herself, reaching the summits of Mont Blanc, Cho Oyu and other peaks. Everest was harder to reach for reasons that had little to do with the mountain. She was refused permits, turned away from foreign expeditions, and once left behind at high camp by a team leader who did not want her on the final push. She attempted the mountain in 1990, 1991 and 1992 and was turned back each time by weather or by other people.

In 1993 she organised her own expedition with Nepali climbers and Nepali money. On 22 April she reached the summit with five Sherpa companions, the first Nepali woman to stand on top of the mountain that rises over her own valley.

On the way down the weather closed in. She and Sonam Tshering Sherpa were caught near the South Summit and died there. Her body was recovered and carried through Kathmandu in a procession. Nepal issued a stamp with her face, named a highway and a peak after her, and her three children grew up with a mother the whole country knew.