Tough & Cheerful: The Life and Times of Kanchha Sherpa Last Living Member from the First Ascent of Mount Everest

A story about the world’s tallest mountain, the evolution of Nepal, and a man who has been part of the staggering transformation of both. As the last living member of the 1953 first summit of Everest, with Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, Kanchha’s history is one never to be forgotten.

In 1933, Kanchha Sherpa was born in Namche, a small village in the secluded Khumbu region of Nepal, home to the world’s highest mountains. He and his family struggled to find food to eat, went barefoot in the winter, and had no idea there was another, very different world beyond the Himalaya. But much of the world knew about them and their sacred mountain, Chomolungma. It was, after all, Mount Everest, and people from all over the world would clamor endlessly for its summit in the many decades to come.

Kanchha’s personal story takes us through time and mountain ranges, from scarcity to abundance, from challenge to conquest, from personal collapse to moral rectitude, and from a hidden land of breathtaking beauty to one threatened by the world’s changing climate.

As a man who now lives in the 21st century, it feels as though Kanchha has had a front row seat to a thousand years of history in a single lifetime. Humble, thoughtful, brave and funny, this ‘tough and cheerful’ man has a lot to teach us.