Peerless summiteer

THIN, wiry and perceptibly sharp-eyed, Ang Rita, 49, rests in his stone house at Thamo, Nepal. The undisputed master of the mountains has completed 25 Everest expeditions. And this year on May 23, the legendary Sherpa made it to the summit of Chomulungma for the 10th time. He didn’t want to. He said as much to fellow climbers in Camp 2. But Goran Kropp, a 29-year-old Swedish climber who was trying to make it to the summit without oxygen, insisted, cajoled and bribed Rita to the top with a rather piffling sum of $800.

Kropp tried to shoot a solo run to the top on May 5 but returned from the south summit because he was getting late and didn’t want to die up there. Disheartened, he turned to Rita to accompany him as climbing partner on his next attempt. Twenty years Kropp’s senior, Rita made it to the top 20 minutes earlier than Kropp. Says Kropp: "He went up the face like a tiger. He is God. I wouldn’t have made it without him." Adds Robert Schauer, a veteran Austrian climber, about Rita: "He is never anxious or nervous. He is very calm. No one else has his kind of experience. You can see his confidence and experience oozing out of the strokes of his ice axe. When you watch him climbing you feel confident yourself."

 In his many expeditions to the mountain, full of crazy westerners trying to peak, Rita has put around 100 people on the top. He hasn’t used supplementary oxygen either on any of his climbs. Says he: "I always felt that using oxygen was dicey. If the cylinders empty out your lungs collapse." Not using oxygen support means you breathe in seven times even as you take one step in the plus 8,000 m zone. Says Ed Viseturs, four time Everest summiteer: "Doing the Everest without gas is the most physically taxing thing you can do on this planet." For Rita, however, it’s a job.

Brought up in Thame along the old trading route with Tibet, Rita started off as a porter for mountaineering expeditions. Graduating later as a member of the base camp kitchen staff, he was soon ferrying loads to Camp 1 and even above and it wasn’t long before he metamorphosed into a high altitude Sherpa at the age of 21. It wasn’t any particular love for climbing that fuelled the transition, but simple mountain economics. Recalls Rita: "In my time there were no schools in my district. I became an orphan at the age of 15 and growing potatoes wasn’t enough to support our family. Since there weren’t any jobs around I had no choice and had to take up climbing."

 Rita first summitted the Everest in the spring of 1983 with an American expedition. He remembers two distinct feelings that suffused him that one day in May. Elation at having scaled the peak itself and the knowledge that the achievement probably brought a semblance of job security in the profession fate had cut him out for. The years ahead saw him go up with Czechoslovakians, Norwegians, Koreans, Spanish, Nepalese, Chileans, Russians and Swedes. His own daily allowances over the decade grew from 100 Nepalese rupees a day in the mid-80s to Rs 500 now. He also witnessed firsthand a sea-change in attitude in the various expeditions coming to Everest. While earlier the expeditions would bring along quality equipment for the Sherpas, these days they dole out an individual allowance varying from $1,250 to $1,500 for the Sherpas to do their buying in Kathmandu. Says Rita: "Teams that are big-hearted give us a good allowance. It also depends on their budget. "

 Rita recollects with nostalgia the time of his second ascent with a group of Slovak climbers in 1984 when lack of a good jacket and sleeping bag prevented him bivouacking with one of the climbers at a high camp. Says he: "I would have freezed to death if I had stayed. He cut out a place for us both in the snow and told me to go down if I was cold. I stayed with him till midnight but then started down on my own without light. I somehow made it to Camp 2. The Slovak slipped the next day to his death before a rescue team could reach him."

 His first winter ascent was with the Koreans in 1987 when he had to bivouac with his Korean climbing partner on the south summit as it had become too late to come down. One of the highest bivs for those days, Rita had a tough time keeping himself and his partner awake. Says he: "I had to keep talking to him. I didn’t want him to die as I would have to descend alone the next morning." The two made it down the next day but had to deal with frost-bitten feet.

He bivved even higher than the south summit with the Nepalese in 1990 when he became the first person to have reached the summit six times. Rita calls the Nepalese team he climbed with, tougher even than the westerners.

By 1988, however, Rita was a celebrity, frequently travelling abroad on the invitation of his western climbing partners. He was a sirdar, leader of Sherpas, and much in demand from the expeditions because of his knowledge of the mountain and its split second weather moods. "Many climbers perish because their leaders don’t know how to read the weather. They don’t understand the mountain," Rita points out.

BUT there were rivalries too that developed with other Sherpas. With the colourful Sungdare Sherpa in the late ’80s and more recently with Apa Sherpa who has summited seven times. Tragically, Sungdare expired in 1989 in a drowning incident after he had made it to the summit five times and about Apa himself Rita denies the presence of any competition though he is quick to point out that Apa uses oxygen on his climbs. For Rita using oxygen on any of his climbs would be blasphemy, for "his record would break".

But for all his feats on Everest, Rita’s not quite attracted western media attention as people feel he should have. Says David Breashears, three time Everest summiteer, and one who was there on the mountain during Rita’s first ascent in 1983: "I don’t want to diminish his achievement but had he done different routes other than just the south side routes it would have been better. One of the main thrills of mountaineering is the fear of the unknown. If you know what’s round the corner it isn’t such a great thing anymore."

 No Sherpa has yet climbed the Kangshuk or east face of Everest where there are regular avalanches. But, says Dawa Norbu Sherpa, president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association: "Expeditions on that face don’t like to take Ang Rita. That would make him more famous than he already is. They like only support Sherpas there."

 Rita though has done the north route once with the Russians on his ninth ascent. Says Deepak Thapa, correspondent at Nepal’s Himal magazine: "What was of interest during the press meet the Russians had after their successful climb was that not once did they refer to the fact that one of their expedition members had achieved a ninth ascent. It was only after pointed questioning that the Russians expressed ‘happiness’ at being associated with Rita’s record feat." 

Part of the fault maybe lies with Rita himself. Says Wongchu Sherpa, two time summiteer and the sirdar who employed Ang Rita for the Swedish expedition this year at a salary of $6,000: "Rita drinks too much. I will not be surprised though if he makes it to the top 15 times." In fact, it’s Rita’s alcoholism that makes him less respected even among the Sherpa community.

 As Dawa Norbu notes: "The Sherpas don’t regard Everest climbers heroes anymore. It’s because so many of them have done it." Jamling Tenzing, Tenzing Norgay’s son who made it to the summit this year, is more precise: "My father would say that he climbed to give us, his children, a better education. So that we wouldn’t have to climb mountains. One of Rita’s sons, Karsan Namgyal, has been climbing with him since 1992. Rita hasn’t been able to make anything long lasting out of his achievement. I feel sad for him."

 While Rita’s own lack of education might be playing a part there, what is surprising is that apart from a grant of Rs 5 lakh from the government last year there hasn’t been much official recognition coming Rita’s way. One of the dreams that Rita has is to have a telephone installed at his residence in Kathmandu. He hopes his 10th ascent will help him towards that. He has two other dreams. To buy enough wood and tin sheets to start an Ang Rita tea shop in the village of Thamo. And the more grand: to start an institute where he could teach mountaineering. 

For Rita himself the crisis is one of lack of choice. Says he: "People say that I should stop now or one day I won’t come back. But they don’t understand. I must keep climbing for I know no other work. I will just wait for someone to call me and I will go. I have no choice."