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| Photo Credit: AP. |
KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — A farmer-turned-mountain guide who recently became the first person to climb all of the world’s 14 highest peaks two times is deciding whether he should retire.
“I think I
want to quit climbing high mountains and travel to foreign countries as a
tourist for a while,” Sanu Sherpa said Friday in Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu.
Sherpa, 47,
recently returned to Nepal after completing his second round of all 14 peaks
over the height of 8,000 meters (26,240 feet). He has scaled Mount Everest
seven times.
He began
mountain climbing later than most people in his community. His first successful
climb was in 2006, when he scaled Mount Cho Oyu at age 31. It was only a year
after he began working in mountaineering, carrying supplies and climbing gear
on his back to the mountains and helping out in the base camp kitchen.
Until then,
he had worked in his remote mountain village growing potatoes, corn and wheat
and helping his parents graze yaks.
He said he
watched as some men from his village worked a few months in mountaineering and
came back with good clothes and money, while he struggled on the farm and
didn’t make enough to support his family.
He decided
to leave his plow and farm tools behind and head to the nearest mountain to
work as a porter.
He was the
first of his nine siblings to take up mountaineering as a career, but was soon
joined by his two other brothers. His only son, who is now in college, has gone
to the lower reaches of mountains with his father but does not want to follow
his footsteps.
Sherpa has
climbed peaks over 8,000 meters a total of 37 times and has been involved in
high-altitude rescues as well as the recovery of dead climbers.
“When
rescuing, I get the thought that someday I could also be in the same situation,
and I get scared. But I continued to climb because it is only as a Sherpa guide
that I can get employment,” he told The Associated Press. “We do not have other
skills or education to get any other work.”
He has
become one of the most sought-after mountain guides since setting the new
mountaineering record, but said he is thinking about quitting because his
family does not want him to continue taking the risk.
“I am
receiving lots of offers now from foreign clients who say they will give me
very good money to guide them to the mountain peaks, but I have not replied,”
he said.