Rab - For the most extreme conditions in the world | Maya Sherpa

Maya Sherpa

Maya started climbing because she wanted to make a difference and change the way people think about woman in Nepal. Now with several formidable peaks under her belt she has also achieved many first Nepali woman accents. Her goal is to climb many more peaks and become an official guide. She wants to use climbing to change the traditional position of Nepalese woman and help her country to develop.

Maya is a well accomplished high altitude climber. She was the first Nepali woman on numerous peaks as: Ama Dablam 6812m, Pumori 7112m, Cho Oyu 8211m, Khan Tengri 7010m. Maya also has two accents of Everest, from the north and the south. She is a relaxed person with good communication skills, and a trained leader from the Nepalese Mountaineering Association. Maya is active in many NGO’s and wants to be an example for other woman in Nepal.

Athlete Blog:

In the spring season of 2008 things didn’t go quite to plan. The Chinese effort to put the Olympic torch on the summit of Mount Everest changed a lot of the rules and regulations in China. This meant I had to change my climbing plans and head out for other places!

My 2008 season started in Nepal, after a lot of uncertainly about getting climbing permits or not, we finally got the green light from the Ministry of Tourism and left together with 20 members for a big Everest/Lohtse expedition.  Everest was a big circus this season, many teams who planned to climb from Tibet had to go to the Nepali side, because no foreigners where allowed in Tibet last spring. Also the Chinese government requested Nepal to beware of anti Chinese protest on Everest; this meant a lot of extra rules and regulations for us. We were not allowed to go high on the mountain before the Chinese had summited. This caused a lot of stress and anger in base camp, we are climbers not politicians!

I wanted to climb Lohtse 8516m and become the first Nepali woman to summit this peak. Lohtse is always a logistical challenge. There are never a lot of teams on in and also it’s not as organized as Everest. As soon as you branch of to Lothse camp, you leave the Everest crowds behind you and you are all by yourself! We had a good team of Sherpa’s, my brothers and uncles and they helped me a lot. They managed to prepare most of the route for me climbing in front of me on summit day. The summit day is interesting; you are climbing in a steep couloir before you end up on a saddle that leads to the summit. Unfortunately we choose the wrong day, as soon as we arrived on the saddle we got blown off. The wind was howling like crazy and the snow was blown from the other side of the mountain into our couloir. I was lucky Rab gave me a brand new expedition down suit, so I didn’t freeze my ass off! Later that day we heard wind speeds exceeded 150 km/h. No wonder we couldn’t fight against it.

We descended back to Camp 2 to rest and try again later. I got stuck there trying to solve logistical problems for our other 18 team members and didn’t have a chance to try again. At the end I stayed for over 40 days at an altitude higher than 6400m. This wore me out; even Sherpa’s have limits, so I decided that I save Lohtse for another time and come back home safely!

After spending one month with my friends and family in Kathmandu and visiting Rab at the Outdoor Tradeshow in Germany I left for the next expedition in the Thien Shan Mountains in Kyrgyzstan. This was going to be my first trip outside the Himalayas! My plan was to climb Khan Tengri (7010m) and have a look at Pobeda in Kyrgyzstan.  Originally I planned to climb Mustag ata and Kongur in China, but again because off the Beijing Olympics we could get a visa to enter China

Khan Tengri is a beautiful pyramid shaped mountain and summit day is quite technical. After flying to Base camp in an Old Russian helicopter we installed Base camp and started to explore the route on the mountain. The first trip on the peak we already reached camp 3 at 6300m, we were debating going straight to the summit. Acclimatisation is very easy if you’ve spent so many days above 6400m only one month before. Still we didn’t want to take the risk and decided to go down to BC and rest one day before heading up and try the summit. The next time we climbed straight to camp 3 again, the next morning we woke up early and headed for the summit. In the beginning it was quite windy and we were in a doubt the weather was going to stay like this. Luckily the weather turned better and we summited in perfect sunshine, just eight days after I left Europe!

I went back to Kathmandu with the first Nepalese accent of Khan Tengri in my pocket. In the autumn of 2008 I led various treks in the Nepalese Himalayas and escorted a group of doctors from the USA to the remote village of Patale far from the normal tourist trails. Recently we are operating a health post there, so the villagers don’t have to walk for days anymore to get a medical treatment. Our visit was a huge success, the doctors where able to check more than 150 villages and treat most of their health problems.

This Spring I will be a member for a cleanup expedition on Everest. The Everest Summiteers Club and the Nepalese government are organizing this expedition. Their plan is to have four of these expeditions and clean up Camp 2, Camp 3 and Camp 4 the most polluted places on Everest. Beside trash there is also a lot of human waste on Everest, especially in Camp 2, we also plan to bring this down.

Have fun in the Mountains! Maya Sherpa

MORE ABOUT ME....

Q. Home?
A. Okhaldhunga,patle,warda no: 4, Nepal, this is a remote village in the Solu region of Nepal. Nowadays I live in Kathmandu most of the time.

Q. Describe your expedition background:
A: A lot of my family are working for expeditions, but for a woman it's quite unusual to do this. I wanted to make a difference and a uncle of mine introduced me in a trekking office. Before I was climbing I was a weightlifter (featherweight) and got a third place in the national championships, this was enough to prove I was strong. They send me to a couple of mountaineering courses and since then I am working for this trekking office. Spring 2003 I did my first big climb on Chulu east, a trekking peak close to the Annapurna's. The same year in autumn I summited Ama Dablam as the first Nepali woman, then my climbing career took off. I did expeditions on Pumori, Cho Oyu, Shishapangma , Lothse and twice on Everest. Now I am also working as a instuctor for the NMA (nepaleese Mountaineering association) and I am hooping to finish the ENSA school in Chamonix, with their exchange program.

Q. And when you’re not doing that?
A. Of course I am relaxing and spending time with my family. I also work as a secretary for two NGO's I started with my friends. One is the "the high altitude workers fund" this NGO wants to improve the conditions Sherpa's have to work in and pay's the medical bills if Sherpa's get injured doing their job. Most insurance doesn't cover this and when a Sherpa dies his family usually gets a huge financial problem. The other one is "Everest helpless children service centre" this NGO helps woman who are left behind by their husbands and single woman. In Nepal it's impossible to marry again and most of these woman have no education. We try to educate them so they can start a small business, also we pay school fees for their children and provide teachers and learning aids at schools in remote villages who are forgotten by the government. In my village I work for the "Mount Everest Foundation" we are building a health post and a school here. This way people who live here don't have to go to Kathmandu anymore this is a three days walk and a 18 hour bus drive!

Q. What’s your proudest moment?
A. When I became first Nepali women to summit Ama Dablam and showed that Nepal woman can make a difference.

Q. What are your future plans/goals?
A. Continue climbing and use this as a tool to change the way of thinking in Nepal. The position of woman in Nepal is very traditional, normally they marry very young and get children. They have no chance to get a proper education and a career! I also want to climb more, because I love the mountains. Maybe K2 and Kanchenjunga will be the next step.

Q. Favourite bit of Rab kit?
A. Right now the Quantum 600 sleeping bag.

Q. Why?
A. Very light and still warm.

Q. Other sponsors?
A. Aku shoes, Osprey packs, Outware trading, outdoordesigns.