Touching my father's soul: A sherpa's journey to the top of Everest  

Citation

Norgay, Jamling Tenzing.  Touching my father’s soul: A Sherpa’s Journey to the top of Everest,

2001. 

Annotation

Jamling Tenzing Norgay gives an insiders view of the Sherpa world as he tells a story of profound adventure at Mount Everest. As a climbing leader Norgay was able to follow in the footsteps of his legendary mountaineer father, Tenzing Norgay, who with Sir Edmund Hillary was the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest in 1953.

In the Sherpa tradition and in the Norgay family, climbing Everest and living in its shadow have a very different meaning than the “men conquering mountains’.  

With skilful prose Jamling Norgay cleverly weaves the story of his own ascent during the infamous 1996 Mount Everest disaster with little-known stories from his father’s historic climb, enriching an already gripping tale.

Jamling is inexorably drawn to the mountain his father loved.

It’s refreshing to encounter a Tibetan sensibility and perspective in an adventure mountaineering narrative.

In the Sherpa tradition climbing Everest and living in its shadow has a very different meaning than the “men conquering mountains”. Sherpas, who are Tibetan Buddhist, call the mountain Chomolungma, for the goddess who lives on the summit and ascribe to fate in achieving a feat that most Westerners see as a glorification of individual strength and will.

Norgay also tells of how the Everest obsession has changed the Sherpa’s environment, work, daily life and future.

Everest west face