Female Climbers, Guides Bring a New Perspective to Trekking in Nepal

S ince Westerners started flocking to Nepal 30 years ago, great changes have come to the little country in the Himalayas. It remains breathtakingly beautiful, with eight of the highest peaks in the world, including 29,028-foot Mt. Everest. But these days, tourism, not potato farming or yak herding, is Nepal’s biggest business, generating much-needed income and a host of modern woes, such as crime and environmental problems. Jon Krakauer’s 1997 bestseller “Into Thin Air” dramatized some of the tragic consequences of commercial climbing in Nepal, and many visitors are disappointed to find that once-exotic Katmandu has Internet cafes and video parlors.

Other changes are subtler and more welcome, like the way Nepalese women, particularly those from the ethnic Sherpa group, have begun to chip away at some of the barriers to getting an education, having jobs outside the home and, above all, climbing mountains. Though Sherpa women, known as Sherpanis, have traditionally enjoyed more independence than many of their countrywomen, they still lag behind their male counterparts, who are the fabled guides and porters from the Sherpa homelands in northeastern Nepal. These men helped Western mountaineers conquer the tallest peaks in the Himalayas. It is well known that Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa, was with Sir Edmund Hillary when he conquered Everest in 1953. It is less well known that two of Tenzing Norgay’s daughters and his niece were part of a 1959 expedition to climb 26,742-foot Cho Oyu west of Everest, according to “Women Climbing: 200 Years of Achievement,” by Bill Birkett and Bill Peascod.

Even Western women who frequent Nepal, like Antonia Neubauer, founder of Myths and Mountains, a northern Nevada-based tour company, say there are several reasons Sherpanis don’t routinely work as expedition leaders, or sardars, or as cooks and high-altitude porters, which are high-paying, respected jobs in Nepal. Extraordinary strength and endurance are required; the sardars, who do the hiring, fear that the presence of women could cause discord; many Sherpas believe women bring misfortune on climbs; and Sherpanis are needed at home while their husbands are away, sometimes as much as 10 months a year, doing expedition work.

Nepalese women are often employed as workhorse, low-altitude local porters, carrying 60-pound loads to base camps, or on easy tourist treks. But as Arlene Blum, leader of the 1978 women’s expedition to 26,504-foot Annapurna, discovered, male sardars often resist finding qualified high-altitude women porters. (Blum’s sardar hired two women, but as kitchen helpers.) And according to Yankila Sherpa, managing director of Katmandu-based Snow Leopard Trekking and Mountaineering, there are only about 15 female sardars in the country.

Yankila Sherpa is an anomaly because among the 275 trekking companies in Nepal, only six are run by women. Her husband, who died recently, started the company two decades ago, and although her responsibilities are largely tour and travel planning, she has always been interested in trekking. “I was born in the high mountains,” she explained in an e-mail interview, “and was fortunate to have the chance to go to school at a time when most girls were not even allowed to leave their villages.” Now, besides organizing treks (including some that introduce Western women to rural life in Nepal), Yankila seeks to employ more women staff members.

The Nepalese women who have become accomplished alpinists during the last few decades have often been the wives of sardars, according anthropologist Sherry B. Ortner. In her fascinating new study of the interaction between Western climbers and Sherpas, “Life and Death on Mt. Everest” (Princeton University Press, $26.95), Ortner describes how Ang Nyimi joined one of her husband’s expeditions as a cook in 1979 and four years later pushed her way to the summit of 25,791-foot Nuptse, despite his protests. And when Pasang Lhamu, a Sherpani, mounted her own Mt. Everest expedition in 1993, her husband, an experienced climber, didn’t join her at the top out of concern for their three small children. Pasang Lhamu died when bad weather forced her group to stay at the south summit. As a dedicated and determined woman climber, she has been both lionized and criticized in Nepal.

Most Nepalese still think a woman’s place is in the home, according to Dicky, Nicky and Lucky Chhetri, three sisters (from the Chetri, not Sherpa, group) who run one of the only trekking companies in the country that caters specifically to women trekkers and that trains Nepalese women as porters and guides. Their company, Three Sisters Adventure Trekking, is in Pokhara, at the foot of the Annapurna Range. There they also run a guest house overlooking Fewa Lake. The company has responded to increased demand for female expertise and companionship, especially on treks from solo women travelers, like Ruth Rosselson of London. Rosselson, who got to know Dicky well when she climbed with her several years ago in the Annapurna Sanctuary, says that “trekking with a female guide added a whole different dimension to the trip.” And though the Chhetri sisters are fighting an uphill battle, every year they manage to interest more Nepalese women in the trekking business.

Snow Leopard Trekking and Mountaineering, P.O. Box 1811, Naxal, Nagpokhari, Katmandu, Nepal, telephone 011-977-1-429-942, fax 011-977-1-434-619, Internet https://www.visitnepal.com/snowlprd; Three Sisters Adventure Trekking, P.O. Box 284, Lakeside, Khahare, Pokhara-6, Nepal, tel. 011-977-61-24066, fax 011-977-61-32249, e-mail sisters3@cnet.wlink.com.np.