What do sherpas carry

Many of Kami's frustrations with his own government relate to his experience on 18 April , when 16 Sherpas were killed after a devastating avalanche at Khumbu Icefalls. The icefall is a notoriously steep and treacherous part of the Khumbu glacier which climbers must negotiate between Base Camp and Camp 1.

It is considered by most Sherpas to be more dangerous than standing on the top of Everest because large pieces of ice can easily become dislodged without warning. Following the tragedy, the Nepalese government introduced medical and life insurance policies for all Sherpas working on the mountain.

But for Kami, who lost an uncle and two close friends in the disaster, this was simply not enough. On the day of the avalanche, he remembers being woken by his brother rushing into his tent at Base Camp.

Following Lapka out on to the ice, Kami saw large groups of Sherpas gathered around on walkie-talkies. Less than 2km north, dozens of Sherpas had been preparing the path at the icefall for the next season of incoming tourists. Huge blocks of ice the size of cars broke off the nearby glacier and fell over 1km right on top of where the group of Sherpas were working.

As the brothers headed up the mountain to help, Kami remembers seeing human limbs scattered in the snow. His brother discovered 11 bodies which had been forced together under the impact of the avalanche. We were powerless," says Kami. The community were furious. After the avalanche, Lakpa vowed never to return to the summit again. He now manages expeditions only from Base Camp. However, Kami, with little education, felt he had no alternative but to carry on climbing.

His fear of the icefall has never left him. After months of being away from his wife and children, on 25 May Kami finally arrived home.

His wife Lakpa Jangmu had made a cake with the candles "24" confirming her husband's record-breaking achievements. But surrounded by trophies stacked up along the living-room shelves and a life-sized poster of "Kami, the world record breaker" mounted just behind the sofa, it all raised the question, would he set out to break his own world record again next year?

Production and graphics by Claire Press. How deadly is Mount Everest? Why Mount Everest's summit gets so crowded. Four reasons why this Everest season went wrong.

Kami Rita Sherpa broke his own record not just once, but twice after summiting Everest for a 24th time. Image source, Getty Images. Everest Base Camp is home to hundreds of people duing the climbing season. Why does the summit get so crowded?

Everest deaths: Four reasons why this climbing season went wrong Sherpa breaks the world record climbing Everest twice in a week. Last month this photo of two rows of climbers simultaneously ascending and descending close to Everest's summit went viral. Sherpas also need to liaise with the clients, support them along the track and then run ahead to make sure the tea is on the boil when clients arrive at camp. Often thought of as self-sacrificing, tenacious best friends of the foreign mountaineer, successful Sherpa will be all too happy to boast that they are doing well enough to employ non-Sherpa ethnicities to schlep loads for them and their clients.

But only to a base camp. The Sherpas who continue on to higher camps and to the summit are highly specialized and usually of Sherpa ethnicity. The higher altitude jobs are more dangerous, requiring more experienced Sherpas and earning higher pay. Can I be like a Sherpa? Scientific tests suggest Sherpas are genetically adapted to high altitudes.

An American study in concluded that Sherpas had undergone genetic adaptations after living in one of the world's highest regions for thousand of years. This gave them an advantage when in high altitudes with low oxygen. Adaptations include unique hemoglobin-binding enzymes, doubled nitric oxide production, hearts that can utilize glucose and lungs with an increased efficiency in low oxygen conditions.

Since then, more studies have been carried out on the genetic basis for this adaptation. Following this logic, we could hypothesize that if we and our children and our children's children all lived at high altitudes all our lives, somewhere down the line our descendants would become Sherpas.

Unless, you're built like Reinhold Messner who made the first solo ascent of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen and who also climbed all 14 "eight-thousanders" -- peaks more than 8, meters above sea level.

Talk about over-achieving. Are Sherpas invincible? A Sherpa collects refuse on Everest. One third of people who have died on Everest have been Sherpas. These genetically adapted guardian angels of Mount Everest climbers sound as if they are pretty much invulnerable to the elements. Few people mention Sherpas falling to their death in crevasses or being left to die on a mountain whilst in the service of vainglorious clients. One third of the people who have died while trying to conquer Mount Everest were Sherpas.

But Sherpa is actually the name of an ethnic group of people who live in the mountains of Nepal, central Asia. Sherpas are local people who are highly skilled and experienced climbers. They are paid to do things such as prepare the route for foreign climbers to follow, fix ropes in place, and carry the necessary climbing kit up the mountain. How do you climb Mount Everest? Climbing Everest is tough and being a Sherpa is a really risky job.

Sherpa are a group of about , people based in the Himalayan regions of Tibet, Nepal, and India. Depending on the client, Sherpas' job responsibilities can be anything from navigator and porter to baby-sitter and life-line. They navigate, establish routes, carry essential gear, set up camp, cook, provide encouragement, and support climbers in every other way.

In some cases, they've even died trying to save their clients. Their list of job responsibilities is almost as long as the list of job dangers. The likelihood of dying as a Sherpa is 10x higher than the most dangerous job in the US commercial fisherman and 3. So what makes these guys special? What we know for certain is that they are physical anomalies. Averaging around five and a half feet and pounds, Sherpas do not appear to be physical specimens. In some of the toughest terrain in the world at the highest altitudes, they routinely carry more than their body weight in gear, food, and equipment for tourists.

What makes this even more impressive is that they do this on a simple diet of bread, potatoes, and noodles and with little to no expensive hiking gear.