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Sherpas say, there won’t be a next generation of sherpas on Mount Everest. (Source: Business Insider. “Why Some Sherpas Say There Won’t Be Any Guides On Everest In 10 Years | Inside Everest.” February 7, 2024. Video, 17:34. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfXIDMDmyL8.)
Sherpas said in interviews that the only reason they work in these demanding, dangerous, underpayed jobs is that they didn’t really have another choice. Coming from poor families, they weren’t able to move away to get higher education, and the region could offer nothing else than jobs in the Everest industry.
But since they want a better life for their children, with their sherpa salaries, they send them away to get educated, so they have a wider range of choices in life. This way, the number of sherpas who will work in the Everest industry by necessity will lower over time.
This happens in parallel with the growing commercial interest and availability of Mount Everest tours. Everest industry money flowing in helps sherpas escape the Everest industry.
It will be interesting to watch the Everest industry over the next few decades.
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- Sherpas showed a different side of them when
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- Sherpas started a strike and forced the cancellation of a whole season of Everest climbing after the Khumbu Icefall Tragedy in 2014. 12 sherpas died in an avalanche waiting to happen since years, and the compensation offered to their families by the government was worth less than a pair of climbing boots. The strike led to a successful negotiation of better salaries and benefits for present and future mourning families.
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- My father also had to give up his dream career (horse breeding), because my grandparents couldn’t finance him moving away for his education. He ended up graduating as a construction painter, which he was until his health fell. After a couple years of health struggles and short-term jobs, he got a job, in the same school he went to, as a practical teacher, training future construction painters. He went into retirement from that teaching job, which in my opinion was a worthy closing of his career.
- Another climbing note: the third man syndrome 4a2-colby-j-ryan-experienced-the-third-man-syndrome-when-he-got-the-tragic-news-about-his-siblings