Death Of A Legend
IN THE tragic death of Babu Chhiri Sherpa on a Sagarmatha slope on Sunday,
Nepal has suffered an irreparable loss of a legendary mountaineer who had established
himself as a Sherpa that tested the mountain elements time and again, and came out a
winner every time. If the Sherpas have proven themselves as extraordinary mountaineers of
the Himalayas, Babu Chhiri was a Sherpa of the Sherpas. His death by falling into a
crevasse on Sunday sadly ends his run of successes on the snow-clad mountains and
particularly on the tallest of them all, leaving unanswered what more exploits he could
have gone on to notch up. Victory on Sagarmatha this time would have made him an
eleven-time summiteer, having first climbed the 8848-metre peak in 1990 and scaling it
twice within a week in 1995-the latter an unsurpassed feat. Over the last decade or so, he
had climbed four other eight-thousanders, apart from other formidable peaks.
What truly set this 35-year-old mountaineer apart from other Sagarmatha
summiteers was that he was not satisfied only with just doing it. He was inclined to push
himself to the limits, testing his endurance and stamina, and challenging harshness of the
thin mountain air. And thus it is that his mountaineering tour de force includes two other
unparalleled accomplishments. He spent a record 21 hours on the very inhospitable
Sagarmatha summit in 1999 summer without bottled oxygen. A year later he made a record
dash to the peak, traversing the distance from base camp to the summit in just 16 hours
and 56 minutes. Each of these deeds rightfully earned him a place in the Guinness Book of
World Records. Many national honours were also accorded him in recent years. Babu Chhiri
had already once seen death from very close quarters when in 1999 he fell into a crevasse,
but his safety rope saved him. This time he could not defy the gnawing possibilities of a
snowy death that Himalayan mountaineers live with, and the nation lost a much-celebrated
man of the mountains. Shocked, the country is paying profound tributes to him. But the
best tribute that the government can pay him would be to see that his family doesn’t
suffer because he is no more, and that his dream project-the school he helped set up in
his home village of Taksindo in Solukhumbu district-is taken care of. Honouring his name
in some way in the mountaineering sphere should also be considered. In the past, we had
celebrated in these columns his mountaineering milestones. But,this time we join the
nation in saluting this Himalayan legend and in praying for his departed soul.
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