Apa Sherpa, nicknamed ‘Super Sherpa’ for his climbing feats, has said that Everest, which he first climbed back in 1989, might soon become impossible to scale as global warming is reducing the amount of snow on the mountain.
“When I first climbed there was a lot of snow and ice,” Apa has said of Everest’s decline. “But now most of it has just become bare rock. That is causing more rockfalls which are dangerous to climbers.
“Also, climbing is becoming more difficult because when you are on a mountain you can wear crampons but it’s very dangerous and very slippery to walk on bare rock with crampons.”
Apa goes by only one name, like many of the Himalayan Sherpa community, and grew up in the shadow of Everest. He now lives in Salt Lake City in the US and is a climate change activist who regularly campaigns about the decline he has witnessed first hand on the slopes of the world’s most famous climbing challenge.
Photo: Getty.
