Kanchha Sherpa, last surviving member of pioneering Mount Everest expedition, dies at 92

Kanchha died at age 92 at his home in Kapan in the Kathmandu district of Nepal, confirmed Phur Gelje Sherpa, the association president.

“He passed away peacefully at his residence,” Phur Gelje Sherpa told The Associated Press, adding that he had been unwell for some time. “A chapter of the mountaineering history has vanished with him.”

Last rites will be held Monday, he said.

Kanchha Sherpa was among the 35 members of the team that put New Zealander Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay atop the 29,032-foot peak on May 29, 1953. A mountain guide for most of his life, he was one of three Sherpas to reach the final camp before the summit with Hillary and Tenzing.

But he never climbed to the summit of Everest himself, as his wife considered it too risky, he said in a March 2024 interview. He forbade his children from becoming mountaineers.

Well-liked and widely respected in the climbing community, Kanchha “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,” said Ang Tshering Sherpa of the Nepal Mountaineering Association.

Kanchha was born in 1933 in the village of Namche in the Everest foothills. He began mountaineering when he was 19 and remained active in the expedition sector until the age of 50.

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