Lhakpa Sherpa (also Lakpa) ( ne, Lakhpa Sherpa; born 1973) is a Nepalese

Sherpa Sherpa may refer to: Ethnography * Sherpa people, an ethnic group in north eastern Nepal * Sherpa language Organizations and companies * Sherpa (association), a French network of jurists dedicated to promoting corporate social responsibility * ...

mountain climber Mountaineering or alpinism, is a set of outdoor activities that involves ascending tall mountains. Mountaineering-related activities include traditional outdoor climbing, skiing, and traversing via ferratas. Indoor climbing, sport climbing, an ...

. She has climbed

Mount Everest Mount Everest (; Tibetan: ''Chomolungma'' ; ) is Earth's highest mountain above sea level, located in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas. The China–Nepal border runs across its summit point. Its elevation (snow hei ...

ten times, the most of any woman in the world. Her record-breaking tenth climb was on May 12, 2022, which she financed via a crowd-funding campaign. In 2000, she became the first Nepali woman to climb and descend Everest successfully. In 2016, she was listed as one of BBC's 100 Women.

Early life

Lhakpa Sherpa was born in a cave in the region, and had no formal education. She grew up in Balakharka, a village in the

Makalu, Nepal Makalu is a village development committee near the mountain of the same name, located in Sankhuwasabha District in the Koshi Zone of north-eastern Nepal. At the time of the 1991 Nepal census it had a population of 3,560 people living in 694 i ...

region of the Himalayas. She is one of 11 children, and is a single mother of two daughters and a son herself.

Career

In 2000 she was the leader of an expedition sponsored by

Asian Trekking Asian Trekking is a commercial adventure company based out of Kathmandu, Nepal started by Sherpa Ang Tshering. In 2001, it was recorded that Asian Trekking ran 25 large mountain expeditions per year. Asian Trekking made international news in 2 ...

. On September 18, 2000 she became the first Nepali woman to summit Mount Everest and survive (see also

Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Pasang Lhamu Sherpa ( Sherpa: , ne, पासाङ ल्हामु शेर्पा; 10 December 1961 – 22 April 1993) was the first Nepalese woman to climb the summit of Mount Everest. She was born in a mountaineering family ...

). This climb was with the Nepali Women Millennium Expedition. In 2003, the U.S. PBS noted that she had summited Mount Everest three times, the most for a woman. In May 2003 she reached the summit with her sister and brother;

Ming Kipa Ming Kipa ( ne, मिङ किपा शेर्पा) (born 1988) is a Nepalese Sherpa woman who held the record as the youngest person to climb Mount Everest from 2003 to 2010. She reached the summit on May 22, 2003 when she was 15 years old ...

and Mingma Gelu. By 2007 Lhakpa Sherpa had summited Everest six times since 1999 and her husband summited nine. That year they hosted a presentation about their 2007 Everest trip, with donations taken for Quaker Lane Cooperative Nursery School. George and Lhakpa summited Mount Everest 5 times together. In 2016 she summited Mount Everest from Tibet (China), making her seventh summit. The president of Mount Everest Summiteers' Association, a Nepali women and high-altitude worker Maya Sherpa also summited, but from Nepal. Maya Sherpa is another record-setting Nepali woman, and she has also summited K2.

Climbing career achievements

Everest summitings: # 2000 # 2001 # 2003 # 2004 # 2005 # 2006 # 2016 # 2017 # 2018 # 2022 Additional expeditions: * Expedition to climb K2 in 2010, did not summit but made it to camp 3 before being turned back by bad weather * Expedition to Everest in 2015; made it to base camp in Tibet, but turned back by the Spring earthquakes in the Himalayas (see also

2015 Mount Everest avalanches During the afternoon of 25 April 2015, a MW 7.8 earthquake struck Nepal and surrounding countries. Shaking from the quake triggered an avalanche from Pumori into Base Camp on Mount Everest. At least twenty-two people were killed, surpassing an ...

and/or

April 2015 Nepal earthquake The April 2015 Nepal earthquake (also known as the Gorkha earthquake) killed 8,964 people and injured 21,952 more. It occurred at on Saturday, 25 April 2015, with a magnitude of 7.8 Mw or 8.1 Ms and a maximum Mercalli Intensity of X (''Extreme ...

)

Personal life

Lhakpa is named for the day of the week she was born on (Wednesday). Although born in Nepal, she is now a U.S. resident and works at taking care of her three children and various jobs. She has worked at the U.S. store

7 Eleven 7-Eleven, Inc., stylized as 7-ELEVE, is a multinational chain of retail convenience stores, headquartered in Dallas, Texas. The chain was founded in 1927 as an ice house storefront in Dallas. It was named Tote'm Stores between 1928 and 1946. ...

. However, in interviews she noted her desire for the mountain, a condition previously seen in such climbers as

George Mallory George Herbert Leigh Mallory (18 June 1886 – 8 or 9 June 1924) was an English mountaineer who took part in the first three British expeditions to Mount Everest in the early 1920s. Born in Cheshire, Mallory became a student at Winche ...

and Yuichiro Miura according to U.K media outlet ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

''. She has two daughters and one son, and was married to George Dijmarescu, a

Romanian-American Romanian Americans are Americans who have Romanian ancestry. According to the 2017 American Community Survey, 478,278 Americans indicated Romanian as their first or second ancestry, however other sources provide higher estimates, which are most ...

, for 12 years. They met in 2000 in Kathmandu, Nepal and got married in 2002. In 2008 George got

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

, which combined with medical bills was noted as one of the factors that created tension in their marriage. The marriage came apart in 2012 when Dijmarescu became violent, and beat Lhakpa Sherpa to the point she was taken to the emergency room; a hospital social worker placed her and her two girls in a local shelter where they stayed for eight months.Bhadra Sharma and Adam Skolnick
The Queen of Everest Trains While Working at Whole Foods
''The New York Times'', January 31, 2023; ''accessed February 8, 2023.'' In 2016, she began again receiving recognition in various news arenas as the woman with the most Everest summitings, and completed her seventh summit that year.

Family and relationships

Her little sister Mingma reached the summit of Mount Everest on May 22, 2003 when she was 15 years old (she climbed with Lhakpa and Gelu), thus becoming the youngest woman and person known to have summited Mount Everest (see also

Temba Tsheri Temba Tsheri Sherpa ( ne, तेम्बा छिरी, born May 9, 1985) is a Sherpa from Rolwaling Valley, Dolkha, Nepal. On May 23, 2001, at the age of 16 years, he became the youngest person to climb Mount Everest Moun ...

and

Jordan Romero Jordan Romero (born July 12, 1996) is an American mountain climber who was 13 years old when he reached the summit of Mount Everest. Romero was accompanied by his father, Paul Romero, his step-mother, Karen Lundgren, and three Sherpas, Ang Pasang ...

). Her brother is Mingma Gelu Sherpa and is noted to have reached the summit of Mount Everest eight times by 2016. The BBC noted that when three of them reached the summit together in 2003, that was the first group of three siblings on the summit at the same time, as recognized by the ''Guinness Book of World Records''. On the 2004 Connecticut Everest Expedition her then-husband Dijmarescu struck Lhakpa. According to Michael Kodas, a journalist present during the expedition, Dijmarescu, "hook da blow with his right hand to the side of his wife's head." This altercation "sparked a sort of media sensation in the mountaineering world".

References