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Ang Rita Sherpa, Nepalese mountaineer who climbed Everest without oxygen – obituary

Ang Rita Sherpa, 69, at his home in Kathmandu, May 2017 - Narendra Shrestha/EPA/Shutterstock
Ang Rita Sherpa, 69, at his home in Kathmandu, May 2017 - Narendra Shrestha/EPA/Shutterstock

Ang Rita Sherpa, who has died aged 72, was the first man to climb Mount Everest 10 times, and in 2017 entered the Guinness Book of World Records for doing so without using supplementary oxygen.

Ang Rita, a Nepalese mountain guide, first conquered the world’s highest mountain in May 1983, assisting a German-American expedition, and made it to the top for the 10th time in May 1996 as a guide to a Swedish expedition. After his eighth ascent in May 1993 a local newspaper gave him the nickname “snow leopard”.

Taciturn and built like a bull, with a sunken face burnt by the high-altitude sun of Nepal, Ang Rita was said to “dance” up the face of the mountain “almost in tune with the crunchy synchronised beat of his crampons on ice” – as one profile writer put it.

Local myth had it that before his record-breaking tenth ascent one doubter swore that he would eat a dog’s penis if Ang Rita climbed Everest again. The man was said to have eaten both his words and the organ in question – which he pronounced “not bad”.

His doubts were, perhaps, understandable as, away from the mountain, Ang Rita was a different man from the agile “snow leopard” of the slopes.

“On flat land, he is an unashamed alcoholic, starting his day with frequent swigs from a litter of bottles lying around and ending up with a series of drunken binges around the city,” claimed a 1997 profile. “I don’t apologise for my drinking, but once on the mountain, I don’t touch the stuff,” Ang Rita was quoted as saying.

Robert Birkby, in his book Mountain Madness, recalled that in 1990, when Ang Rita was away from the mountain for some time, the rumour circulated round Base Camp that he had been arrested and jailed for murder following the killing of a Buddhist monk at a festival in his home village.

When he eventually showed up wearing a Nepal army uniform, it was generally assumed that he had been “sprung” by members of an army expedition which he duly led to the summit of Everest in April that year.

A son of a yak herder, Ang Rita Sherpa was born on July 2 1948 at Thamo, a village in the Solukhumbu district of eastern Nepal. After being orphaned in his teens, he became a mountaineering porter to help support his family.

His first expedition to the highest Himalayan peaks was in 1982, when he accompanied a Belgian expedition up the 8,167-metre Dhaulagiri in western Nepal.

With his wife, 1990s - John van Hasselt/Corbis via Getty Images
With his wife, 1990s - John van Hasselt/Corbis via Getty Images

As well as his Everest climbs, he breasted the 8,586-metre Kanchenjunga twice and scaled the 8,201-metre Cho Oyu and Dhaulagiri four times apiece. He always claimed that he felt more comfortable climbing without oxygen bottles.

Ang Rita was also recognised by Guinness World Records for being the first man to climb Everest without oxygen in winter – a feat he achieved in December 1987.

The Nepalese Government gave Ang Rita two of the country’s highest civilian honours as well as some land in Kathmandu; he also got a small stipend from the Nepal Mountaineering Association. But, due to his problems with alcohol Ang Rita, who lived in a one-room tenement in an insalubrious part of Kathmandu, always struggled with money. Business ventures such as a trekking agency and an attempt to establish a consumer brand in his name failed because he was unable to stay sober.

He also suffered brain and liver ailments, health problems which worsened after his eldest son Karsang Namgyal, an experienced climber, died of altitude sickness during an expedition in 2012.

Ang Rita’s wife died the following year. He is survived by two sons and a daughter.

Ang Rita Sherpa, born July 2 1948, died September 21 2020