Kathmandu, Jan. 15:Looks can be deceptive. Slender body and long straight hair. At 26, shy and reserved Lakpa Sherpa looks just an ordinary lass from Kathmandu. But the lady is out to challenge the highest point on earth in the coming spring. She is leading Nepalese Women Millennium Everest Expedition 2000, which was formally launched today.
Snow and mountains were always “friends” to Lakpa. Born and brought up in Sankhuwasabha, she comes from a family of mountaineers; her elder brother Chhiring Sherpa is a four time Mt. Sagarmatha (Everest) summiteer and her two cousins were perished in the Himalayas in two different accidents.
“When my brother firstly scaled the Sagarmatha’s height. I knew I wanted to do that too.” Lakpa was only 11 at that time. She has already climbed other mountains of above 6000 meters. How does she feel on a mountaintop? “I feel I was destined to be there. I want to be there for ever. Every time I climb down the peak I feel like crying because my desire is to go up and up and never to come down,” Lakpa said with a shy smile.
In a formal launching programme of the expedition today the four-member women team was expressed wishes that their dream be materialised. Nepali Congress President Girija Prasad Koiral and CPN-UML leader Bharat Mohan Adhikari delivered their party’s good wishes and pledged all the support possible from their side.
Assistant Minister for Tourism and Civil Aviation Narayan Singh Pun granting a financial support of two and half lakh from his personal purse pledged “full support” from his ministry. However, he did not elaborate the kind of support the ministry will extend.
Mingma Yangzi Sherpa, deputy expedition leader, is all determined to realise her dream. A divorcee and mother of two teenagers, she wants to make an international name for herself. “My 13-year old daughter got upset with the fear that after loosing her father she might loose me as well in the mountains. But now she is convinced that her mommy will come back victorious,” she said as if she was promising that to her child.
For Mingma the expedition is a mission to prove the world that Nepalese women are as daring as their brothers and through her success she wants to restore the confidence of Nepalese women on mountaineering that was badly jolted by death of Pasang Lhamu Sherpa. Pasang became the first Nepalese women to scale the world’s highest mountain five years back and died on her descend down.
“Pasang had promised to meet me after her successful climb, but her fate failed her. I want to pay homage to her spirit by climbing the mountain,” said the 33-year old entrepreneur.
The other members of the Nepalese Women Millennium Everest Expedition that is scheduled to start the climb on first week of April this year are Dawa Yangzi Sherpa and Dolma Sherpa. The expedition is organised by Sushma Koirala Trust and managed by Asian Trekking. The Trust President Sujata Koirala expressed her confidence of the team’s success.
Since its first assault in May 1953 by Tenzing Norgay Sherpa and Sir Edmund Hillary, 874 individuals have already scaled Mt. Sagarmatha. Out of the total 82 successful climbers are women.