Record-setting Nepali teen climber calls for Sherpas to be recognized as athletes

A Sherpa teenager who’s won mountaineering celebrity as the youngest person ever to summit the world’s 14 highest peaks called for Sherpas to be recognized as athletes and expedition leaders as well as porters and guides.

“It’s always been that Sherpas were supporting climbers and we’re never seen as leaders of expeditions,” Nima Rinji Sherpa told The Associated Press on Friday.

The 18-year-old is planning more, tougher climbs after completing a mission to scale all 14 mountains that rise above 8,000 metres (26,247 feet) earlier this month on China’s Mount Shishapangma.

The Sherpa community were mostly yak herders and traders living deep within the Himalayas until Nepal opened its borders in the 1950s. Their stamina and familiarity with the mountains quickly made them sought-after guides and porters, and eventually for them to dominate the Himalyan climbing business.

Tenzing Norgay conquered Everest with Edmund Hillary in 1953, establishing the community’s fame as climbing masters.

Nima Rinji Sherpa poses for a photograph on top of G2 mountain in Pakistan, July 19, 2023. (14Peakexpedition Via AP)

But since then, Nima Rinji said, Sherpas have rarely been seen as expeidition leaders. He’s started a “Sherpa power” campaign to change that. “This generation does have the potential because we have the privileges that those before us didn’t have, like good education, speaking well and we can understand what is happening regarding climate change, regarding the mountains,” he said.

Now, Nima Rinji and two teammates are planning to go back to Nepal’s Mount Manaslu — the first of the 14 highest peaks he scaled — the hard way. He’s planning a challenging winter ascent in the Alpine style: no support staff, fixed ropes or supplemental oxygen, carrying all their own gear and digging their own track to the top.

Before the winter climb, he will be climbing several small peaks, leaving for the mountains next week.

Nima Rinji comes from a legendary mountaineering family. His father and two uncles run Nepal’s leading mountaineering expedition company, and his uncles were the first south Asians to complete the 14 peaks highest peaks. His father has climbed Mount Everest eight times.

The previous youngest person to climb all 14 peaks was Mingma David Sherpa, who was 30 years old at the time.