Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Sherpa
Walker: Every so often you get to reinvent yourself. The process is rewarding because you can explore a side of your personality that you may have suppressed or was altogether dormant. Perhaps this is why people love Halloween so much.
That said, over the past six days I've molted from my semester-long law student persona to full-time Sherpa. Sherpas, are an ethnic group of people from Tibet that live in the Himalayas, and many Sherpas have helped the world's most famous climbers reach the tops of the world's highest peaks. The most famous Sherpa is Tenzing Norgay who helped Sir Edmund Hillary (see above) climb Mt. Everest for the first time. Behind every great mountain climber is a trusted Sherpa.
Sherpas do all types of things, and but their main task is to help the climbers reach their goals. So, this is all to say that I'm feeling up to the task, and I'm enjoying my latest reinvention...
Read or Post a Comment
If you'd like an intimate portrait of the Sherpas, read Beyond the Summit. A reviewer called it the best book on Nepal ever.
I used to lead treks to the Everest Base Camp and working with a group of Sherpas founded the first hut system in Nepal in 1990. The fall of 1995 had the worst storm in memory. I was appalled at world press coverage of the foreigners who died with no mention of the Sherpas who also perished. I'm a reference librarian and researched the major data bases to discover that while many anthropologists had studied the tribe, no one had dramatized their lives in fiction to reveal their hearts and souls. Beyond the Summit does just that.
A reader posted this comment on Barnes & Noble.
John, a college professor, July 17, 2006,
Best book on Nepal ever
This is the book to read before you embark on your pilgrimage to Nepal. The author knows and loves the people and the country, and makes you feel the cold thin air, the hard rocks of the mountains, the tough life of the Sherpa guides, and you learn to love them too. This is a highly literate, but also very readable book. Highly recommended.
Because the book is so unusual, it immediately generated a great deal of interest. A week after it came out, a Denver affiliate of NBC invited for a live TV appearance and I was interviewed on Colorado Public Radio. Last week while in northern CA, I was interviewed for a one-hour program, A Novel Idea, on KRCB in Rohnert Park, CA; the Pat Thurston Show on KSRO in Santa Rosa; CA and the Morning show on KSVY in Sonoma, CA.
The Boulder Daily Camera published a review on the front cover of the book section Sunday, September 17. The Rocky Mountain News is going to publish a review this Friday. All customer comments on Barnes and Noble and amazon.com have been 5 star. Readers constantly applaud how much they learned about the Sherpas.
Please visit my web site to read the Camera review and others, listen to the Colorado Public Radio interview, and see sample slides. I offer a slide show about the Sherpas and Everest region followed by an author signing.
www.beyondthesummit-novel.com