Kanchha Sherpa: Last Surviving Member of First Team To Scale Everest Dies At Age of 92

Last Updated:October 17, 2025, 00:11 IST

Kanchha Sherpa, last survivor of 1953 Everest expedition led by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, died at 92 in Nepal. He urged respect for Qomolangma, the Sherpa mother goddess

Kanchha Sherpa was among the 35 members in the team that put New Zealander Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay atop the 8,849-metre (29,032-foot) peak on May 29, 1953. (Image: AP Photo)

The last surviving member of the first expedition to successfully climb the summit of Mount Everest, Kanchha Sherpa, has died at the age of 92 in Nepal capital.

On Thursday, Nepal Mountaineering Association president Phur Gelje Sherpa said: ““He passed away peacefully at his residence. A chapter of the mountaineering history has vanished with him."

He was born in 1933 in Namche village in the Everest foothills.

At the age of 19, Kanchha with no prior mountaineering experience, accompanied the 35-member team led by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay to the top of the world’s tallest mountain in 1953.

According to BBC, he carried food, tents and equipment for more than two weeks up to base camp – and was one of three Sherpas to make it past an altitude of 8,000m (26,247ft).

After the historic expedition, Kanchha worked as an high-altitude porter in the Himalayan mountains for two more decades.

He, however, had never climbed to the summit of Everest himself as his wife considered it too risky, he said in an interview in March 2024. He has also reportedly forbade his children from becoming mountaineers.

In an interview with Associated Press, he urged people to respect the mountain, revered as the mother goddess Qomolangma among the Sherpas.

“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."

Kanchha is survived by his wife, four sons, two daughters and grandchildren.

News world Kanchha Sherpa: Last Surviving Member of First Team To Scale Everest Dies At Age of 92

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