Lhakpa Sherpa

Lhakpa Sherpa (also Lakpa) (Nepali: लाक्पा शेर्पा; born 1973)[1] is a Nepalese Sherpa mountain climber. She has climbed Mount Everest nine times, the most of any woman in the world.[2] In 2000, She became the first Nepalese woman to climb and descend Everest successfully. In 2016, she was listed as one of BBC's 100 Women.[3]

Lhakpa Sherpa
Personal information
Birth nameलाक्पा शेर्पा
Main disciplineSherpa & Mountaineer
Born1973
Makalu, Nepal
NationalityNepalese
Career
Starting disciplinePorter
Notable ascentsEverest summit: 9
Family
SpouseGeorge Dijmarescu (Divorced)
Children3

Early life

Sherpa grew up in Balakharka, a village in the Makalu, Nepal region of the Himalayas.[4][5] She is one of 11 children.[6]

Career

In 2000 she was the leader of an expedition sponsored by Asian Trekking.[4] On September 18, 2000 she became the first Nepali woman to summit Mount Everest and survive (see also Pasang Lhamu Sherpa).[4][5] This climb was with the Nepali Women Millennium Expedition.[7]

In 2003, the U.S. PBS noted that she had summited Mount Everest three times, the most for a woman.[8] In May 2003 she reached the summit with her sister and brother; Ming Kipa and Mingma Gelu.[9]

By 2007 Sherpa had summited Everest six times since 1999 and her husband summited nine.[10] That year they hosted a presentation about their 2007 Everest trip, with donations taken for Quaker Lane Cooperative Nursery School.[10] George and Lhapka summited Mount Everest 5 times together.[11]

In 2016 she summited Mount Everest from Tibet (China), making her seventh summit.[12] The president of Mount Everest Summiteers' Association, a Nepali women and high-altitude worker Maya Sherpa also summited, but from Nepal.[12] Maya Sherpa is another record-setting Nepali woman, and she has also summited K2.[12]

Climbing career achievements

Everest summitings:

  1. 2000[13]
  2. 2001[11]
  3. 2003[11][8]
  4. 2004[11][14]
  5. 2005[11][15]
  6. 2006[11][16]
  7. 2016[17][12]
  8. 2017[18][1]
  9. 2018[2]

Additional expeditions:

Personal life

Lhapka is named for the day of the week she was born on (Wednesday).[11] Although born in Nepal, she is now a U.S. resident and a works at taking care of her three children and various jobs.[11] She has worked at the U.S. store 7 Eleven.[19][11] However, in interviews she noted her desire for the mountain, a condition previously seen in such climbers as George Mallory and Yuichiro Miura according to U.K media outlet The Daily Telegraph.[20]

She has two daughters and one son,[19] and was married to George Dijmarescu, a Romanian-American, for 12 years.[19] They met in 2000 in Kathmandu, Nepal and got married in 2002.[13][11] In 2008 George got cancer, which combined with medical bills was noted as one of the factors that created tension in their marriage.[20]

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.[11][17]

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),[9] thus becoming the youngest woman and person known to have summited Mount Everest (see also Temba Tsheri and Jordan Romero).[21][22] Her brother is Mingma Gelu Sherpa and is noted to have reached the summit of Mount Everest eight times by 2016.[19][11] 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.[7]

On the 2004 Connecticut Everest Expedition her then-husband Dijmarescu struck Lhapka.[23] According to Michael Kodas, a journalist present during the expedition, Dijmarescu, "hook[ed] a blow with his right hand to the side of his wife's head."[23] This altercation "sparked a sort of media sensation in the mountaineering world".[7]

See also

References
  1. "Nepali woman scales Mt Everest eight times breaking own record". thehimalayantimes.com. 2017. Retrieved 2017-05-13.
  2. "Lhakpa Sherpa scales Mt Everest nine times breaking own record". The Himalayan Times. 2018-05-16. Retrieved 2018-05-16.
  3. "BBC 100 Women 2016: Who is on the list?". BBC News. 21 November 2016. Retrieved 28 July 2019.
  4. "Mt. Everest 2005: Lakpa Sherpa". Everestnews.com. 2000-05-18. Retrieved 2016-05-20.
  5. Mayhew Bergman, Megan (31 October 2019). "She climbed Everest nine times and set a world record – so why doesn't she have sponsors?". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 January 2020.
  6. "Mt. Everest 2005: Lakpa Sherpa". www.everestnews.com. Retrieved 2016-05-11.
  7. "I want to climb Everest 10 times". 15 June 2016 – via www.bbc.com.
  8. "FRONTLINE/WORLD . NEPAL - Dreams of Chomolongma . Reaching for a Record - PBS". www.pbs.org.
  9. "Everest 2003: Romanian Mt. Everest Expedition North Side". Everestnews.com. Retrieved 2016-05-20.
  10. "Everest Summiters Lakpa Sherpa and George Dijmarescu slide show/video presentation open to the public". Everestnews.com. 2000-05-18. Retrieved 2016-05-20.
  11. "Mt Everest's greatest female climber back for 7th ascent". Stuff.
  12. Pokhrel, Rajan (20 May 2016). "Two Nepali women atop Mt Everest as summit push continues". The Himalayan Times. Retrieved 13 October 2016.
  13. "About to scale peak a seventh time, Connecticut 7-Eleven clerk is Everest's greatest ever female climber". 16 May 2016.
  14. "Himalayan Database Expedition Archives of Elizabeth Hawley". Himalayandatabase.com. Retrieved 2016-05-20.
  15. "Himalayan Database – Spring 2005 Everest".
  16. "as Ms. Lakpa/Lhakpa Sherpa (Tashigaon, Nepal)?".
  17. "7-Eleven worker becomes first woman to climb Mount Everest seven times". Rawstory.com. 2016. Retrieved 2016-05-20.
  18. "Nepal woman breaks her own record for most Everest summits". The Hans India. Retrieved 2017-08-25.
  19. Schaffer, Grayson (2016-05-10). "The Most Successful Female Everest Climber of All Time Is a Housekeeper in Hartford, Connecticut". Outside Online. Retrieved 2016-05-11.
  20. Henderson, Barney (15 May 2016). "Everest's greatest ever female climber: Lhakpa Sherpa - the unknown mountaineering hero who works in a 7-Eleven in Connecticut" – via www.telegraph.co.uk.
  21. Glenday, Craig (2010), Guinness World Records 2010: Thousands of New Records in The Book of the Decade!, p. 210, ISBN 978-0-553-59337-2, retrieved 2011-07-22
  22. THT 10 years ago: Ming Kipa's record was happenstance' says sister, 2013, retrieved 2013-05-28
  23. Kodas, Michael (2008-02-05). High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed. New York, N.Y.: Hyperion. ISBN 978-1401302733.
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