Tales from Everest

Everest region pops up on the news every now and then. Some of them are good: The veteran climber does it again! Septuagenarian Scales Everest! He did it again, without oxygen too! and so on and so forth. Some of them are negative: Garbage pile affects the beauty of the entire region. Some of them unforgivable: Trekkers left in lurch after their teammate deserted them.

There are people who would do that, desert their mates, and there are people who would give their arm and length to rescue their friends and teammates. And, without a doubt, Mingma Sherpa falls in the latter category.

When high altitude sickness gripped his teammates in Gorak Shepe, just below Everest Base Camp, Mingma decided to halt his dreams to visit Kala Patthar and head back to tend to his friends. “I know better,” he says looking back, “than to pull a fast one on my friends.”

“I am happy that some of us has made it to the base camp,” he says. What for him, though? “As for me, Kala Patthar isn't going anywhere. I am definitely going back again.”

Some pictures don’t need captions. Mingma’s capture of the Everest region is one of such examples. With his images he wants so portray why the Everest region is “so immensely popular around the world,” he says, “Words alone cannot do justice to the beauty of the region. Hence, the need for images.” His images capture the breathtaking beauty of the landscape, the lifescape and the beauty that is the Everest region.  

~ Text by Rishi Amatya, photostory editor, V.E.N.T! Magazine