Sungdare Sherpa () 1956 Thame village,

Solukhumbu Solukhumbu District ( , Sherpa: , Wylie: shar khum bu dzong) is one of 14 districts of Koshi Province of eastern Nepal. As the name suggests, it consists of the sub-regions Solu and Khumbu. The closest post office to Solukhumbu with a postal co ...

– 1989 Pangboche) was a Nepalese

Sherpa SHERPA (Securing a Hybrid Environment for Research Preservation and Access) is an organisation originally set up in 2002 to run and manage the SHERPA Project. History SHERPA began as an endeavour to support the establishment of a number of open ...

guide for climbers of

Mount Everest Mount Everest (), known locally as Sagarmatha in Nepal and Qomolangma in Tibet, is Earth's highest mountain above sea level. It lies in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas and marks part of the China–Nepal border at it ...

, who summitted

five times. He was the first person to summit Mount Everest three times.

Climbing career

Sungdare was with

Hannelore Schmatz Hannelore Schmatz (14 February 1940 – 2 October 1979) was a German climber and the fourth woman to summit Mount Everest. She collapsed and died as she was returning from summiting Everest via the southern route; Schmatz was the first woma ...

when she died on a 1979 expedition. He remained with her after she died, and as a result, lost most of his fingers and toes to frostbite. Despite losing his digits, Sungdare summitted Mount Everest four more times after the 1979 expedition.

Death

Sungdare drowned in a river below his village, Pangboche,

Nepal Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ch ...

in 1989.

Elizabeth Hawley Elizabeth Hawley (9 November 1923 – 26 January 2018) was an American journalist, author, and chronicler of Himalayan mountaineering expeditions. Hawley's ''The Himalayan Database'' became the unofficial record for climbs in the Nepalese Himal ...

stated that he struggled with

alcoholism Alcoholism is the continued drinking of alcohol despite it causing problems. Some definitions require evidence of dependence and withdrawal. Problematic use of alcohol has been mentioned in the earliest historical records. The World He ...

and that his death was a

suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Risk factors for suicide include mental disorders, physical disorders, and substance abuse. Some suicides are impulsive acts driven by stress (such as from financial or ac ...

. He was survived by his widow, Bhingfuti. As quoted in an article in ''Backpacker'' magazine talking about Mount Everest:

Ascents of Everest

#1979 #1981 October summitingEverest 80s to 85
/ref> #1982 October summiting #1985 #1988

Climbing career

Death

Ascents of Everest

See also

References

Further reading