WA Sherpa climbed Everest 17 times — working for others. Now he’s starting a new adventure

BOTHELL — In the climbing world, Lakpa Rita Sherpa stands out for some remarkable achievements. He summitted Mount Everest 17 times. He became the first Nepali to climb the “Seven Summits,” the highest peaks on every continent. He was among Outside magazine’s 2013 “adventurers of the year” for his continual rescues of imperiled Everest climbers.

Recently, he added a new distinction — founder of one of the few U.S. mountaineering companies owned by someone of Sherpa ethnicity, whose members have long occupied the high mountain valleys around Everest. (Many hold the surname “Sherpa.”)

Unique among Nepal’s ethnic groups, Sherpas have long worked on Everest as guides, porters and cooks, but usually for Western businesses — until recently. In Nepal, Sherpas now operate many expedition companies. But in the U.S., home to numerous adventure tourists looking for the next peak, there are not many other than Lakpa Rita Sherpa’s Khangri Experience, run from his Bothell home office.

“I’ve worked so hard,” said Rita Sherpa, 58, reflecting on 40 years in the mountaineering industry, most as a guide and manager on expeditions all over the world. Those expeditions took him away from home for eight or nine months of the year. A witness to many tragedies, he said the stress was intense — “mentally, physically.”

He wanted to ease up a little, but not too much, and decided being his own boss was the best way to do it. He left his longtime employer, Seattle-based Alpine Ascents International, and started Khangri Experience last year, incorporating into the company name the Sherpa word for mountain.

He roped in his superstar younger brother, Kami Rita Sherpa, to join the company as an expedition leader. Now living in Nepal and soon to move to the U.S., Kami Rita Sherpa, at 53, beat his own world record in May by climbing Everest for the 28th time.

The brothers are focusing on treks and climbs in Nepal and Tanzania.

While Lakpa Rita Sherpa establishes his business, he’s also leading climbs on Mount Baker and Mount Rainier to raise money for the Northwest Sherpa Association, which wants to build a local community center. About 250 Sherpas live in the Seattle area and 500 in the region, according to association president Ang Jangbu Sherpa.

“He’s our pillar,” the association president said of Lakpa Rita Sherpa, someone revered not just because he’s world renowned but because of his support for the community, including raising funds for victims of a devastating 2015 earthquake in Nepal.

In Nepal and elsewhere, many have seen Lakpa Rita Sherpa’s face on posters advertising climbing gear. On a trekking trip to Everest base camp this spring, Seattle’s Kristy Petersen said Nepalis were constantly stopping to shake his hand, take a photo or bring him gifts.

“It was like being with royalty,” she said.

Frostbite and avalanches

Growing up in Thame, one of the villages surrounding Everest, Lakpa Rita Sherpa didn’t necessarily aspire to a climbing career. Sure, he wanted to ascend the world’s tallest peak. He attended schools built by Edmund Hillary, who along with Sherpa climber Tenzing Norgay was the first to reach the summit in 1953. Climbers, including them, visited his schools.

“I always want to be like those guys,” the Bothell mountaineer said.

But he was working hard to get an education that was still rare among Sherpas; he walked four hours each way to his middle school and three days to a town where he lived in a hostel so he could attend high school.

Necessity started him on his life’s work. His father, who worked as a “sirdar” or “lead Sherpa” on the mountain, could no longer climb after losing several toes and fingers to frostbite.

“Being the oldest son, I had to take over,” Lakpa Rita Sherpa said. A family of 10 depended on him.

He had just graduated from high school, not yet enough of an education for many jobs. Through a relative, he landed a spot on an Everest expedition as a “climbing Sherpa,” or high-altitude porter, carrying loads up and down the mountain.

As he made his way up to a camp near the summit, which stands at just over 29,000 feet, an avalanche buried him. A co-worker, also buried, shouted that he should move his body as if swimming. Lakpa Rita Sherpa didn’t know exactly what that meant, but he guessed well enough to pull himself out of the soft snow.

“It was terrifying,” he said.

He concluded climbing wasn’t for him. But, still, he saw no other options.

Over time, he developed a love for the profession: the way it brought him close to nature and let him help people fulfill their dreams. And he picked up the complex technical skills and judgment needed for leadership on the mountain, including knowing when to turn struggling clients back.

In 1990, he reached Everest’s summit for the first time, with a team from Yugoslavia that included the first married couple to get to the top: Marija and Andrej Štremfelj.

That same year, he worked on an expedition led by Alpine Ascents owner Todd Burleson. It went well, and Burleson asked him to work for Alpine Ascents full time.

In 2000, Lakpa Rita Sherpa moved close to Alpine Ascents’ headquarters, and he and his wife raised three kids in the Seattle area. Two are now nurses and one is a dental assistant.

He was one of Alpine Ascents’ first guides born outside the U.S., said the company’s director of programs, Gordon Janow. Many Sherpas working for American companies two or three decades ago occupied support roles but did not lead expeditions to Everest or other similarly ambitious peaks.

Yet, Lakpa Rita Sherpa had an even bigger vision, Janow noted: to transcend Nepal’s climbing community and operate on an international scale. He began leading expeditions in Alaska, Antarctica and South America, and in 2009 scaled Mount Kilimanjaro, his last of the Seven Summits — a feat he hoped would inspire other Nepalis to climb for adventure and not just for work.

All the while, he continued to guide climbers to Everest’s summit — until 2014. That year, an avalanche killed 16 Nepali expedition staffers in the Khumbu Icefall, a lengthy stretch of shifting ice that high-altitude porters traverse 20 or 30 times as they bring loads to upper camps.

Lakpa Rita Sherpa, then at base camp, was the first to arrive. He dug bodies out from under 4 or 5 feet of snow. Five of the dead were co-workers, including an uncle.

“I was heartbroken,” Lakpa Rita Sherpa said. He knew it could have been him. Something inside him told him not to take that chance again. He kept working on Everest but in a far safer role as a base camp manager.

Still, he has watched tragedies continue to unfold. This spring, another avalanche hit the Khumbu Icefall, killing three of his cousins, including one with the same name.

As Sherpas’ opportunities expand, Lakpa Rita Sherpa wonders whether many will opt for less perilous careers. If so, he said, Nepal’s climbing industry, which depends heavily upon Sherpas for their labor and high-altitude prowess, could be in trouble in 10 or 20 years.

A local knowledge and expert touch

Lapka Rita Sherpa’s vision for Khangri Experience centers on trekking: vigorous trips, such as to Everest base camp, at 17,598 feet, that avoid the treacherous regions above. Undeterred, his record-holding brother will guide any summits the company may pursue.

A selling point, Lakpa Rita Sherpa believes, is his Nepali roots. “I know the culture,” he said. “I know the traditions.”

Petersen, who went on the spring base-camp trek with a women’s hiking group she founded, said Lakpa Rita Sherpa revisited his life story with them. “We went to his hometown. We met his family and his wife’s family. … It was just so special to see his country through his eyes.”

Petersen also brought six women to a fundraising Mount Rainier trip Lakpa Rita Sherpa led last year. They intended to reach the summit but ran into 60 mph winds.

“I think he wanted to push us to a point where we felt like we had given it all,” she said. “And we did. … All the other groups turned around far before we did. And it gave us our sense of, ‘Hey, we can do hard things.’”

When it seemed like the group might be blown into a crevasse or face some other danger, he turned them around.

“He has an amazing ability to really sense a group and know what they need and what they’re capable of,” said Petersen, 53, co-owner of a Seattle modeling agency.

Last month, Lakpa Rita Sherpa sat on his back deck with a group he was set to lead, along with a couple of other local Sherpas, on a three-day fundraising trip to Mount Baker’s summit. Lean from his years working in the mountains, understated in manner, he exuded a quiet authority.

The group would adhere to “leave no trace” principles, he explained, meaning they’d take out everything they brought in — even their own waste. He’d distribute large plastic poop bags, demonstration to come. They would also take care not to spill anything when washing their dishes. Rinse with hot water, then swallow.

“Self-care is very important,” he noted. If your foot hurts, take care of it right away because if you wait for a climbing break, that could be too late.

He had them spread out their gear in his backyard, underneath a line of fluttering Tibetan prayer flags. He eyed the crampons, ice axes, boots, helmets and clothes for layering, quickly saying what would do and what would have to be swapped out. Then he showed them how to pack with maximum efficiency: sleeping bag at the bottom, sunglasses in the top pocket known as the backpack’s “brain.”

The roughly dozen clients there, paying $1,300 apiece for the trip, were outdoor enthusiasts but beginner mountaineers. They were also almost all originally from Nepal and, except for one, not Sherpas.

Diwas Poudel, 45, a finance professional turned stay-at-home dad from Oregon, said he grew up watching people come to his hometown, Pokhara, to access the Himalayas. But like most of his peers, he stayed busy playing soccer and studying. Mountaineering, he said, “never even occurred to us.”

Only as he got older, looking for ways to connect to his home country, did he start thinking about trying an experience so many others were pursuing.

Maybe, said Deependra Basnet, a 28-year-old software engineer living in Kent, this trip would motivate him to go home and climb Nepal’s mountains.