Lhakpa Sherpa is a Nepalese Sherpa mountain climber. She has climbed Mount Everest nine times, the most of any woman in the world. 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.
Early life
Sherpa grew up in Balakharka, a village in the Makalu, Nepal region of the Himalayas. She is one of 11 children.
Career
In 2000 she was the leader of an expedition sponsored by Asian Trekking. On September 18, 2000 she became the first Nepali woman to summit Mount Everest and survive. This climb was with the Nepali Women Millennium Expedition. In 2003, the U.S. PBS noted that she had summited Mount Everest three times, the most for a woman. In May 2003 she reached the summit with her sister and brother; Ming Kipa and Mingma Gelu. By 2007 Sherpa had summited Everest six times since 1999 and her husband summited nine. That year they hosted a presentation about their 2007 Everest trip, with donations taken for Quaker Lane Cooperative Nursery School. George and Lhapka summited Mount Everest 5 times together. In 2016 she summited Mount Everest from Tibet, making her seventh summit. The president of Mount Everest Summiteers' Association, a Nepali women and high-altitude worker Maya Sherpa also summited, but from Nepal. Maya Sherpa is another record-setting Nepali woman, and she has also summited K2.
Climbing career achievements
Everest summitings:
2000
2001
2003
2004
2005
2006
2016
2017
2018
Additional expeditions:
Expedition to climb K2 in 2010, did not summit but made it to camp 3 before being turned back by bad weather
Expedition to Everest in 2015; made it to base camp in Tibet, but turned back by the Spring earthquakes in the Himalayas
Personal life
Lhapka is named for the day of the week she was born on. Although born in Nepal, she is now a U.S. resident and a works at taking care of her three children and various jobs. She has worked at the U.S. store 7 Eleven. 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 outletThe Daily Telegraph. She has two daughters and one son, and was married to George Dijmarescu, a Romanian-American, for 12 years. They met in 2000 in Kathmandu, Nepal and got married in 2002. In 2008 George got cancer, which combined with medical bills was noted as one of the factors that created tension in their marriage. 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.
Family and relationships
Her little sister Mingma reached the summit of Mount Everest on May 22, 2003 when she was 15 years old, thus becoming the youngest woman and person known to have summited Mount Everest. Her brother is Mingma Gelu Sherpa and is noted to have reached the summit of Mount Everest eight times by 2016. 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. On the 2004 Connecticut Everest Expedition her then-husband Dijmarescu struck Lhapka. According to Michael Kodas, a journalist present during the expedition, Dijmarescu, "hook a blow with his right hand to the side of his wife's head." This altercation "sparked a sort of media sensation in the mountaineering world".
