Kanchha Sherpa, the last living link to the historic 1953 Mount Everest expedition that saw Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay stand atop the world’s highest peak, has died at the age of 92. His passing early Thursday at his home in Kapan, in Nepal’s Kathmandu district, was confirmed by Phur Gelje Sherpa, president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association. “He passed away peacefully at his residence,” Phur Gelje told The Associated Press, closing the final chapter on a remarkable era in mountaineering history. “A chapter of the mountaineering history has vanished with him.”
Kanchha Sherpa’s death marks the end of a living memory of the expedition that, more than seventy years ago, redefined what humans could achieve in the face of nature’s fiercest challenges. Born in 1933 in Namche Bazar, a village nestled in the foothills of Everest, Kanchha grew up in a community where most Sherpas farmed potatoes and herded yaks. As a young man, he struggled to support his family, even walking five days to Darjeeling, India, in 1952 in search of work. Despite having no prior mountaineering experience, he was persuaded to train as a porter and soon found himself on the cusp of history.
At just 19, Kanchha joined the 35-member British expedition led by Colonel John Hunt, which included Hillary, a New Zealand beekeeper, and Tenzing Norgay, the famed Sherpa mountaineer. According to BBC, Kanchha was recruited as a high-altitude porter, thanks in part to his father’s friendship with Norgay. His job was anything but easy: he carried food, tents, and equipment up to base camp, often bearing loads of up to 60 pounds. “I got good work. I got good clothing. It was good for me,” he recalled in a 2011 interview with Climate Wire.
The trek to base camp was grueling, lasting more than two weeks, and the dangers were ever-present: wind, cold, and the thin air at high altitude. Kanchha was one of three Sherpas to reach the final camp before the summit, climbing without supplemental oxygen and fixing ropes along the treacherous trail. His role, like that of most porters, was not to reach the summit but to ensure the success and survival of those who would. When news came by radio that Hillary and Norgay had reached the 8,849-meter (29,032-foot) summit on May 29, 1953, the team erupted in celebration. “We danced, hugged and kissed. It was a moment of pure joy,” Kanchha told Everest Chronicle, as reported by The New York Times.
Despite his proximity to greatness, Kanchha never summited Everest himself. He said in a March 2024 interview that his wife, Ang Lhakpa Sherpa, considered it too risky. After a fatal avalanche in 1970, she urged him to stop climbing altogether. He heeded her wishes, leaving behind the most dangerous expeditions and instead guiding visitors to safer, lower-elevation sites in the region. “He was full of energy and even after retiring and in his old age, he was trekking to monasteries all over the Everest region for religious ceremonies,” Ang Tshering Sherpa of the Nepal Mountaineering Association told The Guardian, underscoring the deep respect he commanded within the climbing community.
For two decades after the 1953 expedition, Kanchha continued to work as a high-altitude porter in the Himalayas, until his wife’s concerns finally convinced him to leave the perilous work behind. He forbade his children from becoming mountaineers, perhaps mindful of the risks he had taken and the tragedies he had witnessed. Yet he remained deeply connected to his community and the mountain itself, trekking to monasteries across the Everest region for religious ceremonies, even in his later years.
Kanchha’s legacy is not just one of physical endurance and courage but also of humility and stewardship. In recent years, he became an outspoken advocate for the preservation of Everest. In an interview with The Associated Press in March 2024, he lamented the overcrowding and pollution that have plagued the mountain in the decades since his historic climb. “It would be better for the mountain to reduce the number of climbers,” he said. “Qomolangma is the biggest god for the Sherpas. But people smoke and eat meat and throw them on the mountain.” He urged climbers and organizers alike to respect the peak, which the Sherpa people revere as Qomolangma, or the goddess mother of the world.
His concerns echoed those of many in the Sherpa community, who have watched as Everest has transformed from a nearly insurmountable challenge to a crowded tourist destination. Kanchha’s words carried the weight of experience: “If we stop the tourists to save the mountains, we don’t have anything to do. Just grow potatoes and eat and sit,” he told Climate Wire, reflecting the complex balance between environmental preservation and economic survival for those who live in the shadow of the world’s tallest mountain.
Kanchha was described by fellow Nepali mountain guides as a legend and an inspiration, a sentiment echoed by climbers and historians alike. His story is a reminder that the triumphs of Everest are not only those of the famous summiteers but also of the unheralded helpers without whom no ascent would be possible. Tenzing Norgay died in 1986; Edmund Hillary in 2008. With Kanchha’s passing, the last direct witness to that fabled climb is gone.
He is survived by his wife, four sons, two daughters, eight grandchildren, and one great-granddaughter, according to Everest Chronicle. Last rites are scheduled for Monday, October 20, 2025, in Kathmandu, where family, friends, and admirers will gather to pay their respects to a man whose footsteps helped blaze a trail into history.
Kanchha Sherpa’s life spanned an era in which Everest went from an impossible dream to a bucket-list achievement for thousands. Yet for those who knew him, his humility, devotion to family, and reverence for the mountain stood out just as much as his role in one of humanity’s greatest adventures. As the world remembers the glory of 1953, it’s worth recalling the quiet strength of those like Kanchha, whose legacy endures in every climber’s footsteps on the mountain he called home.