LHAKPA SHERPA     

* 1973 in Nepal

Lhakpa Sherpa is a Nepalese mountaineer who has scaled Mount Everest ten times, making her the only woman ever to achieve this feat.

Lhakpa was born in a cave and grew up with her ten siblings in the Nepalese part of the Himalayas. She received no formal schooling, yet she had a strong desire to climb Mount Everest as a Sherpa. Women, however, were not permitted to do so — but she persevered and began working as a porter and cook for tourists from the age of 15.

This is how she met her husband, with whom she climbed Mount Everest five times between 2001 and 2006.
The couple later moved to the United States and had two daughters and a son.
But the marriage was a nightmare: Lhakpa’s husband humiliated, abused, and beat her until she finally managed to divorce the tyrannical partner in 2015.

To provide for her children, the modest, single mother worked as a cleaner and as a sales assistant in a supermarket.

Nevertheless, Lhakpa remained devoted to her great love, Mount Everest, throughout and after her marriage.
On 18 September 2000, she took part in the Nepali Women Millennium Expedition and climbed Mount Everest from the southern Nepalese side. She became the first Nepalese woman to complete both the ascent and the descent of the mountain.

In 2022, at the age of 49, she climbed the mountain for the tenth time, setting an absolute world record — an extraordinary achievement for a woman who never received professional mountaineering training.

There is an excellent documentary about Lhakpa Sherpa titled Lhakpa Sherpa, Queen of the Mountain Peaks, which I wholeheartedly recommend.
One simply cannot stop listening to this beautiful, intelligent, and fascinating woman.
Truly impressive!