Sherpa crossing the Khumbu Icefall on Mt. Everest in 2004. “There are not many Sherpa stories told,” he says. “We are not educated enough to write a book.” | Photo by Kami Sherpa
Recently, a book appeared among the Nepali handicrafts in the window of Himalayan Bazaar on Main St. Beyond Everest traces the path that took the store’s co-owner from grinding poverty to the top of the world’s highest mountain. He and his wife and co-owner, Moni Mulepati, were married there, drawing international coverage.
Related: Life After Everest
There’s plenty of other drama in the book—Sherpa came from poverty, and the marriage faced caste and religious barriers. But he says his chief motivation in telling his story is to shed light on his people: the impoverished Sherpas (an ethnicity as well as a personal name) who risk their lives guiding wealthy foreigners up the world’s most dangerous peaks.
“There are not many Sherpa stories told,” he says. “We are not educated enough to write a book.”
Though Sherpa is listed as a coauthor, Montana writer Corrine Richardson’s name comes first on the cover. They met when Sherpa spoke there, at a fundraiser for educating Nepali girls. Richardson then spent seven years interviewing the couple and others, even trekking to Everest Base Camp.
The book recounts how Sherpa grew up in a home shadowed by alcoholism, fleeing at age twelve to work in a tea house in a larger village. He later moved to Kathmandu, where he honed his climbing skills.
When Himalayan Bazaar founder Heather O’Neal took a trek in Nepal as a student, Sherpa carried her bags. She was so impressed that, years later, she hired him as a guide for her travel business. (He now does his own tours.) O’Neal was running Himalayan Bazaar from her west-side garage, and he suggested they move it downtown.
He and Mulepati now own the business as well as a home in Ann Arbor. Their daughters, Pelzom and Mezel, attend Ann Arbor public schools. But Sherpa’s connection to his Nepali village remains strong. Working with various nonprofits, he raised money for a hydroelectric project that provides water and electricity there. When earthquakes destroyed much of the village in 2015, he helped rebuild it.
Mulepati says Mezel is especially excited about Beyond Everest. The eleven-year-old is telling everyone, “We own the Himalayan Bazaar, and my dad and mom married on top of Mt. Everest, and now they have a book!”
Related: Rebuilding Nepal